http://www.mydigitalfc.com/fashion-and-style/luxe-goes-crafty-193

For those of you that don’t have time to read it, the basic premise is that high end luxury brands (Louis Vuitton etc) have been pulled up for representing their brands as ‘craft’ and ‘handmade’ while the truth is they’re just pumping out mass produced machine made goods – granted, they are using high quality materials – but not in the ‘little old Italian man sews them together by hand’ way they imply in their ads.

This has lead to a renewed interest in associating ACTUAL hand crafted goods and labels with bigger brands, so that they can retain their heritage values. Sort of absorbing real makers and craftsmen to keep their street-cred.

Anyhoot, the article tells the rest of the story, but this is quite topical for Dani and I at the moment as we are preparing a thorough business plan and looking at sourcing funding / grants to get this all off the ground

Seems we’re on the opposite side of this issue, plenty of skills, no money – so it is good to read that our concerns that we might be too tiny a fish in the big commercial world of luxury goods are perhaps not that big a worry… if we stick to our guns and MAKE what we sell, and also keep our integrated show-and-tell style workshop it will help us stand apart from the not-really-handmade luxury brands that are losing their credibility to real (not Nouveau Riche trashy luxury addicts) traditional luxury customers.

That said, what we personally have in hand craft skills we lack in crucial admin and business skills, so we are now weighing up the idea of getting a 3rd person on board who has some room in their brain to plan and run this business. If you’re interested, let us know, we will probably put out an official ‘expressions of interest’ thing in the coming weeks.

Cheers!

The only reason I was trying NOT to get too nerdy with this stuff was a fear that I’d spend 57 hours a week in my spare room on a computer, and somehow classify that as a craft. As a bit of justification for the jump back in to the digital realm (not that I need to justify anything, but I may as well) … a few conversations lately have lead to me decide that if I’m going to release a range of shoes that are worthy of a high price point and a super level of exclusivity – dictated by my personal involvement in their construction, and thus high labour costs – they may as well have all the bells and whistles I can possibly muster up.

So this week I am looking in to custom digitally printed fabrics to integrate with the leather uppers, and it was pretty obvious that ‘guessing’ what pattern goes where, and what scale / orientation / colour to use would be a never ending task if using actual fabric samples. I have modelled up my chosen last in 3D, knocked up some quick indicative geometry for the rest of the components and now I can get to work on laying out patterns and colour combos much faster than using the ol’ textas.

I will also be pushing the limits a bit with my heel and platform shapes, so having 3D digital models = direct rapid prototype prints = much better results than my hand carved ones.

Things can get pretty crazy in a short amount of time….

With that mini milestone under my belt I’m off in to the city to meet another new shoemaker in the making to see what she is planning on doing. Exciting.

Enjoy the sunshine today if you’re in Melbourne (and I assume the snow if you’re in the northern hemisphere) and Happy Valentines Day.

Anyhoot, the future is (sort of) here! I’ve just modelled up my first object in Rhino 4.0, which means I’m one step closer to being able to make brain-meltingly complicated heels, platforms and fittings for my shoes! Combined with my 3D printer and some resin casting skillz, there will be no end to the craziness that I can hang under a nicely sewn and lasted upper. All those hours of nerding really do come in handy at times.

So, here’s a screengrab of a ring design Dani has been tinkering with that she is going to try getting 3D printed and cast in silver this week. Awesome.

This post will probably also interest our studio crew (we need to come up with a name for our gang that isn’t naff, something like the DBC, or DBK if we use Krew? I will have to raise it at the next AGM) as both Katia and Amber were recently discussing 3D printing as a path they would like to take, so look out for more studio R & D over the next few months, especially once I get the RepRap in the room.

For a more traditional spin on replicating, I also made my first Urethane castings of a FAT 5″ heel this week so that I can start making prototypes that all look the same!

Lots more to do in terms of stregth and weight saving (they’re heavyyyyy) but it was pretty exciting to start to see custom made components appear each hour with the magic of Chemistry.

What else is there to talk about? We’re working a mega business plan and budget in the hope of getting some grants or funding for Stage 2 of the plan this year… so much typing!

Oh, and we heard today that the super cool and funky pants’ed studio buddy we were holding our breath for is moving in in March! Wooooop! So we’ll have a full house, jeweller gals all over the place, robots and fashion mags stacked to the ceiling. It’ll be like a little slice of heaven (note to self – book Dave Dobbin for the opening party to perform Slice of Heaven)

After a bit of a lull this weekend just gone, I’m feeling inspired again… and god help up us when I get my new Volkswagen next weekend, I’ll be like a kid in a big rusty candy shop!

Listening to : Die Antwoord’s new one TEN$ION. Its fuckin’ awesome.

Oh, and on top of our regular Tumblr account > http://deadburied.tumblr.com/ < I have started another personal one, but I’ll reveal all when it’s filled with funny.

Plugged it in, made it move back and forth, up and down, grinned like an idiot after forgetting how cool it is to see your home made robot whirring to life.

Next stage is to swap the electronics for a RAMPS kit I purchased, and hopefully get some prints out in the near future.

Listening to : OFWGKTA playlists

For those of you not on Twitter (which we werent until 9pm last night) and those of you not on Facebook (congratulations for not wasting a million hours a week) we have MORE big news about Dani.

Seems yesterday afternoon none other than Mr Kanye West popped in to Alice Euphemia… had a browse… bought 3 items…. 2 of which were Dani’s necklaces!!

So, she is understandably pretty excited about it, not that she/we were crazy Yeezy fans, but it is nice to know that someone who hangs out at Paris Fashion Week liked her stuff enough to purchase it (with a fancy looking credit card from what we’ve heard)

High fives AGAIN to Dani M! wooo…

Dennis, whom I purchased most of my machinery from has some other items to sell before he leaves Australia for good.

He has a Pfaff post machine (493? Same as mine), a flatbed heavy duty machine, or maybe 2 flatbeds, and a massive collection of shoe trade catalogues and magazines that he has gathered over the years as design references.

If you are interested, let me know and I can ask how much $ he wants for them… Best you get in before he leaves next week!

After a successful stall at the Sydney Finders Keepers market, she was asked to do an interview and today this lovely article has shown up on their blog :

http://www.thefinderskeepers.com/blog/2012/01/featured-designer-dani-m-designs/

Earlier in the week she was also featured on two French design blogs :

http://www.hum-gum.com/blog/2012/01/23/portrait-de-createur-dani-m-designs/

http://www.naomibar.com/article-portrait-de-createur-dani-m-designs-97649822.html

So, although we’ve had a slow start to the year in terms of production, things are ‘on the up’ in the publicity department it seems.

Lots more of this sort of stuff to come in 2012…….

Unfortunately this was only done in the last 2 hours of the day after spending the rest of it messing around with odd jobs that went nowhere… I also hit a hurdle when I found that a whole lot of yellow leather I was looking forward to using is just wayyyy too soft and tends to stretch and tear when I work with it. The annoyance took me a good hour to get over, but time is scarce, so it was on to other things.

After a suggestion from a seasoned high heel wearer that some of my designs were a bit high in the ‘throat’ – thus making the wearer’s legs look a little short if they’re not super tall – I had a go at modifying a previous design to see how well a variation on a theme would work. I also added a bit of gold piping (my first attempt at such an idea) and DAMN, it really adds a sexy evening-wear look to it. This will be investigated further asap.

So, a new shape, low in the front so when combined with a 1″ platform and a big arching heel it will make anyone look tall, long and lean. Nice. (The heel wont be white, that was just a raw one I had around)

Ooh, I also received my first email about an internship today! From the USA too, so hi Madeline if you’re reading this.. I’ve replied, we’ll see where it goes from here.

Listening to : Learn to speak French with Alexa, the Podcast….I’m learning to speak French, seems like a fun way to spend my train trips!

It’s been hot in Melbourne lately and our house doesn’t have air con, so Dani and I have been taking a little longer than planned to get back in to full enthusiasm mode for 2012. We have had some nice social occasions lately thought, so at least that’s a plus. We also have had some new studio pop-ins lately (Hi Laura) which has made us both happier about having our own little empire in the city again, it’s great when you get to meet people from all over the world just by chance.

I am plotting and planning how to get all the things done that I need to do by a self-imposed March deadline, so expect some serious craft work to go on in the next 2 months. Resin casting, leather work, making boxes, making shoes, making videos……. everything, all at once (that’s my motto).

Steve

Listening to : Big Sean – Finally Famous

ps. We have TUMBLR account now where we’re sneaking up our inspiration images from the last few years  > http://deadburied.tumblr.com/

After a well earned rest Dani and I are back in action, working away on new projects, coughing up cash to our suppliers who sold things at the pop up shop, cashing cheques from our stockists (well, Dani is, not me) and shuffling desks around to accomodate our new studio crew. More on them soon, I’ll take some photos and introduce them to you when I get a chance.

This year will be the year where we go from “lets start a shop” to “oh my god, we’ve opened a shop” and hope you all stick around to see how we go, what we make and which hot celebrities are the first to get decked out in our wares.

There is a mega list to get through before I properly launch my shoe label, Dani has a stack of new ideas to work on ranging from uber-high-end Egyptian inspired jewellery to a new range of hand spun porcelain wares straight off of her pottery wheel, and together we’re going to produce some in-house label stuff for Dead & Buried, silk scarves, tote bags, that sort of thing. We are also hoping to get our first interns / helpers / students in this year so that we can have a few more sets of hands helping out and so that we can pass on all this knowledge we have, and all those expensive books we’ve bought over the years. We’ll put up some sort of official application thing when the time is right, so keep an eye out for that.

I have a whole backlog of craft / shoe stuff to post, but for now here’s a few images of the wedding shoes I made!!

that’s them, hand-dyed italian silk, mini pleats to match her bodice and ankle straps.
A bit vintage and a bit modern at the same time.

A quick flashback to the dye batches in progress (I dyed it all myself to get it jusssssst right)….

and then on the day it’s time to buckle up…
 
The happiest couple around

the photographers know where the real quality stuff is…

and two more shots that make the wedding look like if was in some sort of French film…

Click HERE for a big long collage of all the shots of the wedding if you like that sort of thing – it was pretty amazing in every aspect, thanks to Michelle and Wilde for having us there!
Image credits : http://whiteheightsmedia.com + http://www.michaeldavidgray.com