Pub­lished 5/30/2017

One of my larg­er projects this year was also some­thing rather spon­ta­neous. I designed and con­struct­ed a jack­et for an up-and-com­ing musi­cian in Ger­many, Beranger Gras. I was excit­ed to work with Beranger because his music is a mix of clas­si­cal and grunge sounds. Not only is his style real­ly cool and unique, but his way of mix­ing and pair­ing the old with the new is what I try to do with Ana­gras­sia and Ukrain­ian folkwear/embroidery.  

(Check out his work here: WEBSITE, INSTAGRAM, and FACEBOOK. And if you’re lucky enough to hear him in the streets, it sounds amaz­ing live!) 

The sto­ry begins back in Jan­u­ary. There’s anoth­er sto­ry of how we actu­al­ly met, but that’s too big a tan­gent! After we start­ed talk­ing we soon start­ed brain­storm­ing ideas & designs. He had a few struc­tur­al ideas before we nailed down the final designs. (Some of the con­cepts were either impos­si­ble for me to do with my machines or dif­fi­cult to do with­out any fit­tings with Beranger.)

One of the designs we had planned was a full silk vel­vet jack­et. The full silk vel­vet jack­et would have been firm and padded, that is, not soft like the silk vel­vet smok­ing jack­et I’ve made in the past. How­ev­er, just before cut­ting the final jack­et, I stopped by my (very knowl­edge­able and expe­ri­enced) dryclean­er to see if it would be pos­si­ble for him to help me with the vel­vet pressing/fusing. Dur­ing my vis­it, my dryclean­er warned me about the risks of mak­ing a silk vel­vet jack­et. Silk vel­vet CANNOT get wet. Water would like­ly leave water­marks and ruin the nap of the vel­vet. Also, it is near­ly impos­si­ble to fix silk vel­vet with a flattened/damaged nap. Because Beranger would be per­form­ing out­doors and the jack­et would need to be wrapped and shipped to him abroad, Beranger and I decid­ed that it was best not to do a FULL vel­vet jacket. 

After scratch­ing the full vel­vet jack­et design, I was short on time for find­ing the exact fab­ric I had in mind, so I crossed my fin­gers and drove to Fish­man’s Fab­rics in Chica­go in search of fab­ric and but­tons. Fish­man’s Fab­rics didn’t have what I orig­i­nal­ly hoped for, but I found an end-of-bolt piece* of black and bur­gundy wool fab­ric. The weight of the wool was lighter than I want­ed, but I liked the tex­ture and col­ors of the wool. 

(*There was not enough wool to make the back vent we orig­i­nal­ly hoped to cre­ate on the jacket.)

The but­tons I found at Fish­man’s Fab­rics were per­fect! Not only did I real­ly like the brass, but the sym­bol­ism of the but­tons are per­fect! I chose the fleur-di-les but­tons down the front because Beranger is French and the eagle but­tons on the cuff because I am Amer­i­can and eagles rep­re­sent a kind of free-spir­it­ed strength, which pret­ty much embod­ies Beranger’s new music. The eagle is also a part of Ger­man nation­al sym­bol­ism. I think the design brings all these places togeth­er and this makes the jack­et all the more mean­ing­ful giv­en that it will always be a reminder of this present moment in Beranger’s life. Anoth­er rea­son why clothes are so special! 

The jack­et is lined with a modal cot­ton, poly lin­ing, and silk/cotton fab­ric. I orig­i­nal­ly hoped to line the jack­et with silk, but unfor­tu­nate­ly I did not have black silk in stock and no time to go back to Fish­man’s Fab­rics. (The silk may have insu­lat­ed Beranger’s body bet­ter, but hope­ful­ly these oth­er fab­rics last longer with wear.)

I could go on with more jack­et design details, but I’ll spare you and save myself some time to enjoy Memo­r­i­al weekend! 

As soon as I fin­ished the jack­et, I shipped it out to Beranger. How­ev­er after the USPS exchange with DHL (which is the offi­cial Ger­man postal ser­vice) the jack­et dis­ap­peared for over 2 months. To this day, we still can’t make sense of the track­ing on the pack­age and the ran­dom address­es where it was sent. After 6 weeks and a filed claim I real­ly thought the jack­et was gone for good. 

Then as inex­plic­a­bly as it van­ished, one day the jack­et just showed up in my mail, one week before I left for my trip to Europe. It was super iron­ic giv­en that I would be pass­ing through the same city that Beranger was sched­uled to play. 

So I could just bring it with me!

When Beranger and I first con­nect­ed ear­li­er this year, nei­ther one of us thought I would hand-deliv­er his jack­et almost 6 months after start­ing it, and “busk” around Bonn/Cologne, Ger­many togeth­er with the drum­mer, Todd. 

So despite the long wait and crazy cir­cum­stances I can’t help but think that the chaos of life can actu­al­ly make bet­ter, more excit­ing end­ings to sto­ries along the way. What start­ed as artis­tic col­lab­o­ra­tion almost end­ed in a huge upset, but then took a turn and sur­prised me in the best way pos­si­ble: a cold beer and a good laugh in Cologne with new friends!

Beranger Gras and Todd James have great music, but they are even better guys.  I hope they make their way to the States soon so everyone here can meet them and hear their music live!

And hopefully you’ll see them wearing better Anagrassia jackets/coats in the future 😉