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Threads Magazine Podcast: "Sewing With Threads"
An Award-Winning Collection, with Annika Geissberger | Episode 79
00:25:55
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- [00:00]
Janine Clegg
Carol, we must tell everyone about the trip we're planning and inviting you, our Threads audience, to take with us. October 5th through the 14th of 2024, we've put together an exclusive tour to the Netherlands to visit textile ateliers, museums and fabric shops. And as the main event, we've arranged a three day workshop with Saskia Trevella of the Dutch Couture Academy. She'll give Threads travelers in depth instruction in draping on a half scale form along with couture embellishment techniques. The trip is packed with activities that are sure to inspire you. To find out more about the Travel with Threads Netherlands Tour, go to tours.threadsmagazine.com the group is limited to 20 participants, so reserve your place now. Welcome to Sewing with Threads monthly podcast from Threads Magazine. I'm Janine Clegg and I'm joined today by Annika Geisberger. Annika is a recent graduate of the Fashion program at Marist College in New York State and the winner of the 2024 Threads Magazine Sewing Award for Excellence in Garment Construction. Welcome, Annika.
- [01:15]
Annika Geisberger
Hi. Thank you so much for having me.
- [01:18]
Janine Clegg
Annika, you created a cohesive, polished and a really joyful collection for your final senior project at Marist. Threads editor Carol Freyja and I were really impressed with your mastery of details and the professional level of machine and hand sewing on the garments that you made. Could you describe your collection and your inspiration for it for us?
- [01:40]
Annika Geisberger
Absolutely. So Bloom is a collection that is inspired by my grandmother's nature and garden poems. She was a poet, an avid gardener, and a very spiritual woman who regarded nature as something that was equal to herself. Before she passed, she left my mom and I with hundreds of poems and journals in hopes that we would be able to do something with them. And obviously I'm not a publisher, but I am a designer, so the obvious line of action for me was to combine her form of art, which is poetry, and my form of art, which is design, into a fashion collection. And the goal of this collection is not only to bring her poetry to life, but to encourage people to get away from their technology filled lives and out into nature.
- [02:24]
Janine Clegg
Yeah, we really were impressed by what you put together. And I love this concept of moving away from your phone, your computer screen, and just getting back to the outdoors. The pieces you sewed were just beautiful. How many ensembles did you put together for this collection?
- [02:49]
Annika Geisberger
I had four looks in the collection and within those four looks there were 10 garments.
- [02:54]
Janine Clegg
Yeah, that was pretty incredible. There was this one part that I was very impressed with it was very whimsical. You had designed and sewed at least one flower related accessory for the collection. And there's one in particular I'm thinking of. Can you talk a little bit about the accessories and how you came up with the idea to go with your bloom collection?
- [03:19]
Annika Geisberger
Absolutely. So I ended up designing a bag that I've been calling the bouquet bag. And it's a bag that's designed to hold a bouquet of flowers. And originally, I love accessories that kind of hold unconventional things. Like thinking of, like, my mom has an apron where you can put eggs in it because we have chickens, or like, there's. There's a tote bag that I've seen that carries a wine bottle. So I loved that unconventional accessory idea. And I also knew that I wanted a Runway moment where my models were holding bouquets of flowers, because it was just so me, and it made sense for the collection. So I was like, why not just make the bouquets a part of the accessory? So I designed this bag, and I really picture, like, a young woman bringing this bouquet bag to the farmer's market, getting her organic produce, getting her flowers for the week. And it's really just a cute, chic accessory. And I had a lot of fun trying to figure out the best way to fit a whole bouquet of flowers into a bag. So it was a lot of fun to come up with it.
- [04:28]
Janine Clegg
It was. And you did you even lined the bag with the print?
- [04:33]
Annika Geisberger
Yes, it was lined with a print. And I was careful with the inside of the bag is a canvas material so that the flowers can kind of be in there without staining some beautiful textile. And the outside is a fluid linen suiting. So the outside is a little bit more beautiful, and the inside is lined with that canvas print.
- [04:54]
Janine Clegg
And the linen suiting matches some of the garments in your collection. So it all came together again. Cohesive.
- [05:03]
Annika Geisberger
Yes.
- [05:04]
Janine Clegg
We'll have to show folks some of those in this whole process. First of all, how long did it take you? And can you talk a little bit about the challenges for creating your designs?
- [05:17]
Annika Geisberger
Yeah. So it took me an entire school year, as well as the summer before, where I was planning and coming up with my concept. And how our program is laid out is in the first semester, we do all the concepts work and all the patterning. So I spent an entire semester really tuning my concept and just coming up with all the patterns and making sure that each look was exactly how I wanted it to be. And I'm very much a perfectionist, so this did take me quite A while to make sure that everything was exactly how I wanted and that the fits were correct. And then in the second semester, we go into final fabric. Any dyeing? I did hand painting, a lot of sculpting with fabric, so that took the entire second semester. And I would say that my biggest challenge while creating this collection was actually just making sure that I could get it all done in the timeframe that I was given. I was very ambitious. I had a lot of details, a lot of hands drawn prints, hand painted prints, and it took me quite a while and a lot of very careful planning of my time in order to get everything done.
- [06:32]
Janine Clegg
Very incredible. Yeah. And you did talk to me a little bit about that earlier, about all the planning and all the hand printing. And what I. What really drew me in was this idea that you based it on your grandmother's poetry and the hand drawn prints that you made were based on her poetry. I wonder, was there one particular poem that stood out for you that inspired you in particular, or a poem that you'd like to share with us that she's written? Because it sounds like she was pretty prolific.
- [07:10]
Annika Geisberger
Absolutely. So my hero piece of the Collection was a 100% cashmere wool coat with all these flower details, as well as tiny hidden mushrooms and lichen kind of like crawling up and blooming out of the coat. And that look was inspired by a poem that she wrote called Moss Life. And I can absolutely read that for you now.
- [07:35]
Janine Clegg
Oh, I would love to hear it. Yes, please do.
- [07:38]
Annika Geisberger
All right. So Moss Life, and this was written in 2004. You can hardly see them unless they huddle together. Those tiny lives that scramble up the wall almost overnight. So small, microscopic. Reaching for minute spaces, they overrun bricks, climb into cracks and hug the rocks, settling a short time before humidity slows, before their life shrivels dry. This profound carpet. You want to stroke this velvety cheek so soft that you imagine your own gown at the opera as green in that spotlight. And you start singing glorious arias of moss, that strong creature who first graced this planet long before other lives. Your voice rises to the highest tone as you feel one with that life that just showed up at your door. Struggling with those cracks but never giving in. So beautiful, so mighty and strong and, oh, so reckless. Please be careful when stepping outside. Yeah. And this poem was a big inspiration to me because I love her ability to show something so small that probably most people walk by on a daily basis and never consider these tiny little like moss that all grow together and huddle together. As she describes that she really is able to give a voice to, which is why I wanted to have a lot of details in this coat and really bring to light these lichen and mushrooms and moss, like creatures that are often overlooked.
- [09:18]
Janine Clegg
And you did that. One of the things that we examined closely, Carol and I, was how you were able to apply these dimensional embellishments to the coat without any of the stitches showing. Can you talk a little bit about that?
- [09:37]
Annika Geisberger
Yeah. As I mentioned before, I'm a huge perfectionist, so this was very important to me. I really wanted the flowers to be as realistic as possible. So I was very careful to pattern the flowers and sew them in a way that they. That the stitches were pretty much invisible. So when sewing the flowers together, I used a longer embroidery needle that was super thin as well as pretty thin thread. And I really carefully and meticulously tacked each flower and each petal in a way that would bring it to life and create the 3D structure, while not to show the appearance. So if that meant tacking and tying a section and moving on to the next, instead of leaving that thread running and trying to hide it, that's absolutely what I did. So I was very careful in the way in which I sewed them.
- [10:34]
Janine Clegg
Very meticulous. Now, those. That was the 3D embellishment. But like you spoke just a minute ago about how you also hand painted and hand drew flower motifs and hand painted them onto the fabric. That sounds very challenging, especially given your time frame.
- [10:59]
Annika Geisberger
Yes.
- [11:00]
Janine Clegg
How did you do that?
- [11:03]
Annika Geisberger
So this was absolutely a challenge for me. The drawings I was kind of able to do, like, I think I did a few of them in bed, and I kind of did them here and there when I wasn't sewing. But as far as the actual silk painting that I did on the large panels which were stretched on frames, that was an extremely time saving process. What I did was you use this medium called Gouda, and you first have to go in with this Gouda, and it's almost like think of doing henna on your skin. You have to go in with this little squeeze bottle and create all the outlines for the painting. And then you have to wait for that to dry, which takes a few hours. And right after it's dry, you're able to go in with the silk paints. And I was very careful with, like, creating gradients and creating colors that I wanted to include. One of the dresses has poppies to kind of pay homage to my home, which is in California. So I really wanted to make sure that they were realistic and also Beautiful. So I was very careful, taking a lot of time to do this. And I remember my friends were like, we never see you. You're always in the studio. You're always painting. So at one point, my friends came and helped me carry these giant frames all the way back from the studio to my apartment so that I could, like, do it while I was watching a movie with them. So I definitely made the timing of it work. But whatever time I gave for myself, it ended up taking at least five times longer than I expected.
- [12:47]
Janine Clegg
Oh, my goodness. Well, it did pay off in the end, because on the Runway, you had a the Marist College Silver Needle Runway show that is held every year by the graduating seniors. In that show this past spring, your designs really stood out. Colorful, floral, silk, painted fabrics really shown. And the other. The other striking thing on the Runway with your garments was UV activated fabrics that you had. Could you please explain that from your collection, why you included it, what inspired you?
- [13:37]
Annika Geisberger
Absolutely. So a part of the collection that was important to me was, as we had mentioned, bringing people out into nature. And I really wanted to have an element in the collection that was directly affected by nature. So I love the idea of garments that change color when they're in the sun. So in order to do that, I wanted to dye parts of each look with these photochromic UV dyes. And they only change color when they're out in the sun, or, as I painstakingly learned, with a very specific type of UV light that is 365nm. I used to know nothing about light, but now I know so much. But getting the dyes, sourcing them was quite the process. There's a lot of pigments that are photochromic that are available and a lot of paints. There's, like, a few companies that do that, but there's very few that actually do the UV clothing dye, especially in the colors that I wanted. And I had a pretty specific color palette that I wanted for my collection. So I actually spent a lot of time just sourcing the dyes. And once I did, I was able to reach out to the company, because, of course, these things take a while to make. And when I originally placed the order, I was on a wait list that was supposed to be done right before the Runway. And I was like, oh, my God, it won't happen. I can't do it. So I actually called the company a ton of times, emailed them, and somehow, by the grace of God, they were able to make me a little batch and send it to Me early. So I did get the dyes that I needed, which I was so excited about. And then the second obstacle that I faced was actually using the dyes. So for anyone who hasn't been in the Marist College senior studio, it is a beautiful room with floor to ceiling windows, so much natural light, and the dyes that I was using, you can only dye in the dark in no natural light. So I was like, oh, how am I going to do this? So I ended up creating a little workshop in the hallway right near, like, the stairwell where there was no lights. And for sure, some of the professors didn't appreciate me taking up the hallway, but I had to do it. It's what I needed to do to get my color changing to work. So. So I ended up doing that. And so all the dyes have to be out of sunlight, as I mentioned, and the dyeing and drying process both have to be in the dark. So I was able to do that in my little hallway station. And after that, the next temp was figuring out how to make the color change happen in a Runway setting where there is no natural sunlight. Because when you walk outside, there is the beautiful switch, and it's so magical and so fun. It happens almost instantly. And on the Runway, that obviously won't be able to happen without some sort of light. So I started doing so much research about so many lights and returned so many to try and find out what worked. And I finally found the lights, and every time they would come in, all my friends would be like, is this one going to work? We would huddle around and test it out, and there were so many sad moments when they just did not. But. And some of the colors, the green and the yellow, work under less amount of nanometers. So some of the lights would work on that, but then not on the pink. So it was really interesting to learn about it and kind of have this huge trial and error process. But I ended up finding the correct lights, and so we had that Runway moment, and it was really fun.
- [17:32]
Janine Clegg
Persistence pays off. My goodness.
- [17:34]
Annika Geisberger
Absolutely.
- [17:38]
Janine Clegg
Wow. I am impressed by your willingness to continue experimenting and trying. You know, trying until it works. The dying in the hallway must have been quite the experience with everyone walking by wondering, what the heck were you doing?
- [17:56]
Annika Geisberger
Oh, yeah, I definitely got some interesting looks, and I was so lonely out there. All my friends were in the studio, and I was in the hallway for hours.
- [18:05]
Janine Clegg
But it eventually came into the studio when you were finished, right?
- [18:09]
Annika Geisberger
Absolutely, yes. I moved back in once everything was dyed.
- [18:13]
Janine Clegg
Excellent. You also showed in Addition to creating beautiful fabrics, through your hand painting and through dyeing the fabrics, you created beautiful garments with your sewing. Did you do much sewing before you got to Marist and into the fashion program?
- [18:39]
Annika Geisberger
Yeah. So I've actually been sewing from a very young age. My mom wanted me to try every sport, every hobby, so I was always being put into different classes. And I started out with a hand sewing class with a woman named Sewing Sally when I was very young. And I learned to embroider and make all these cute little pillows and stuff, and it was something that I was really interested in. So she then signed me up for a machine sewing class where I made a tote bag and a pair of pajama pants. And I fell in love. Absolutely. So fourth grade, for Christmas, I got a brother sewing machine, and I used to make clothes for my dolls. I used to try to make dresses for myself, although now I feel like I would absolutely freak out if I saw them those excuses for dresses. But it was a huge, amazing learning opportunity for me, and I really did learn a lot of great skills because I kept that sewing hobby all through middle school, all through high school, and obviously into college. I actually made my prom dress in high school, and that was my. That was my first very successful dress before they were a little bit silly in places, and the perfectionist in me was very frustrated that I couldn't get it right at the time. But, yeah, that was my first successful dress. And then in college, I really got to hone in on my skills and learn a more professional level.
- [20:10]
Janine Clegg
Oh, you have to tell us about the prom dress.
- [20:14]
Annika Geisberger
Okay, the prom dress. So at the time, I really knew nothing about pattern making, so it was all draping and referencing garments that I had in my closet that fit me that I could kind of trace onto fabric and make work. But it was this super cute pink satin dress, and the front part of the bodice laced up. And I think that was in part because I didn't really know how to do closures very well, in part because I thought it looked very whimsical and cute. So that worked out for me. And the bottom was this. It was just very flowy, a line style, and there was a leg slit in it, which was absolutely the hardest part for me. I knew I wanted that. I don't know why, but I absolutely wanted a slit, and I had no idea how to achieve it. So I really just played around with it and I somehow did it. And there was no seam there. It was just a slit. So very proud of that. I was very proud of that at the time.
- [21:20]
Janine Clegg
Wow. And you didn't even use a conventional pattern.
- [21:23]
Annika Geisberger
You know, I didn't really even know how at the time. I didn't really know that that was even what I was supposed to do.
- [21:31]
Janine Clegg
Wow. That's pretty incredible. I think sometimes when you first start out with something, you don't know what you don't know, and you're just willing to try anything and experiment, and that opens the doors for so many possibilities, and you don't limit yourself. So I think that's what you did. Yeah, that's. That's amazing.
- [21:57]
Annika Geisberger
Thank you.
- [21:58]
Janine Clegg
What are you most proud of with your collection?
- [22:04]
Annika Geisberger
I think I'm most proud of. Well, my favorite garment is my coat. I keep mentioning it as my hero piece just because I think the execution that I was able to do, I'm so proud of, as well as all the flower details. It's really like a showpiece for me, and it's absolutely something that I would want to show off to employers. It's all over my portfolio. So I think that's the garment that I'm most proud of. But I would say that just the element that I'm most proud of is being able to take all of these ideas that I had, because I constantly am getting bombarded with, oh, my God, I should add this. I should add this. And being able to not only edit them, but also include a lot of them in a way that ended up being very cohesive.
- [22:53]
Janine Clegg
It was very cohesive, and that was. I think that was what Carol and I were struck by. There were. You thought of every detail, and everything came together beautifully without being overdone. It just was very well thought out, in our opinion. And that's why we decided you were very deserving of the sewing award, the excellence in garment construction. You really. You really did a great job. Thank you. So we thank you for sharing that with us. You know, I. You. You have your whole career in front of you. What is your next step in this creative life? Are you. Are you working now? Now that you're graduated, are you looking for a job? What's your. What's your plan?
- [23:42]
Annika Geisberger
Yeah, so I came back to Northern California to be with my family for a little bit over the summer and just kind of rest, breathe after this huge collection, huge stress of a Runway. So I'm home now, and my next goal is to. Well, I'm looking for a job on a design team, and I really want to find a company or a brand that I'm passionate about, because my biggest goal is really just to learn as much as possible. And in the long term, I do hope to start my own brand someday. So I really want to join a design team that I'm passionate about that I can really be a part of and learn from. So that's my next goal.
- [24:24]
Janine Clegg
Beautiful. Very nice. Thank you, Annika, for sharing the details of your collection and your experience in creating it. And thank all of you for listening to Close Annika, would you like to share another of your late grandma's poems with us?
- [24:40]
Annika Geisberger
Sure. I have one here called Nature. All right. You are the mother of all things, the roots underground, the tree with the yearly circles, teaching us about floods and drought, winds and rough weather. You bring flowers to beautify the world, poppies bursting through cracked sidewalks, lotus flowers rising from mud to open our eyes to the meaning of body and soul. You teach about.
- [25:12]
Janine Clegg
Beautiful. Thank you so much, Annika.
- [25:15]
Annika Geisberger
Thank you so much for having me. This was so much fun.
- [25:19]
Janine Clegg
You can Read more about Annika's collection at threadsmagazine.com We've written a story and shared images of her collection there. We'll include a link to the story in the show Notes for this episode too, which you can find under the Podcast tab on our site. Please remember to send your comments, questions and suggestions to Thom, and please like comment and subscribe wherever you are listening. Until next time. Keep on sewing with threads.