← Threads Magazine Podcast: "Sewing With Threads"
Threads Magazine Podcast: "Sewing With Threads"
Style Falcon Patterns: Designs for Mature Figures | Episode 74
00:39:19
Style Falcon patterns are designed for those without an hourglass shape, and the instructions and pattern pieces are visually accessible.
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- [00:01]
Narrator
Go to threadsmagazine.com and explore our helpful project guides. Each guide is a curated collection of articles and videos on a specific sewing topic, so it's easy to find the information you need. There's the Learn to Sew guide that beginners can rely on to teach themselves how to create stylish, well made garments. The Learn to Sew guide offers content on everything from choosing tools and materials to basic sewing, garment details, fitting, and simple projects. More guides focus on fitting and sewing tops and pants, working with knit fabrics, and making the perfect pair of jeans. In each project guide, you'll find dozens of posts organized to lead you through a logical learning sequence. Let threadsmagazine.com be your guide to a comprehensive sewing education.
- [00:56]
Carol Frazier
Welcome to Sewing with Threads, the monthly podcast with the staff of Threads magazine. I'm your host, Carol Frazier, and today I'm joined by Diane Scarponi. Diane is the founder and visionary behind Style Falcon sewing patterns. She's a lifelong sewer and learner and she started Style Falcon to serve the needs of sewers with mature figures. She heads a team of pattern makers, graders and illustrators to bring Style Falcon patterns to sewers around the world. Style Falcon was recognized by the Sew Over 50 Instagram group's Sew Over Ageism campaign. Diane lives in New Haven, Connecticut with her husband David and a standard poodle named Asta. Welcome, Diane.
- [01:36]
Diane Scarponi
Thanks so much, Carol, for having me on the podcast. It's great to meet you.
- [01:39]
Carol Frazier
It's great to meet you too. I have, oh, just a whole bunch of questions for you, and the first one is, without getting too personal about your own motivations, I'm just thinking if you say you're a lifelong sewer, you must have been using commercial patterns patterns pretty much the whole time. And then one day you realized that that was not working for you. What was it that that led you to decide that there needed to be a new line of patterns?
- [02:05]
Diane Scarponi
Well, you guessed correctly, Pat. Carol, that's part of what happened really. Let's just say that the high bust in a princess seam almost defeated me. When I was in my early 40s using commercial patterns, I always been able to sew them more or less out of the package with, you know, maybe grading between sizes. And I have uneven shoulders, so I always made that adjustment, but otherwise it was no trouble. And then I was working on a bodice for this princess seam dress and I thought, gee, I guess do I need to get a new bra or something? Like what's going on? What's going on with this bus Point. And it turns out that the bus point is made for a woman who's maybe in her 20s, and I was in my 40s, and that was incompatible. And that started me on this interesting journey of discovery about just how much your body's changed as we age or for other reasons. Child's birth, menopause, health issues, and how most sewing patterns are not taking any of those sort of things into consideration.
- [03:09]
Carol Frazier
Yeah. I have to say that I sewed when I was young and then when I was. But I came back to it when I was in my 30s and then even into my 40s. I felt like the patterns were okay. I mean, they weren't perfect, but they were okay. And then one day I was thinking, like, why is everything so wonky here? I mean, suddenly nothing really works, and you kind of want to blame your patterns, and then you think, oh, actually I realize for me, that I'm getting shorter year by year, and. And the shortness is all in my spine. And you suddenly realize that the patterns just aren't made for that kind of shape. Yeah. So what are the kinds of adjustments that are built into your patterns?
- [03:52]
Diane Scarponi
The patterns don't really have adjustments. In fact, the way that they're designed is they are built using a mature body for the block. So, as opposed to most commercial sewing patterns are built for a youthful hourglass figure. And almost all the clothing that you will see in the store is built for someone with a youthful hourglass figure. And if you have that figure, then everything in Earth, almost everything on earth, is for you. And if you don't, which is, let's face it, a lot, a lot, a lot of us, regardless of our age, but particularly as we get older, then we're stuck making these adjustments. So when I built Style Falcon, I started with the premise that I was going to build a block for a mature figure from the beginning. So I worked with a fit model who's 60, and you take a ton of measurements, 60 something measurements, and worked with a professional pattern maker to build a sloper, in essence, that incorporated a real person's body, and then went from there to build the patterns themselves.
- [04:53]
Carol Frazier
So then you have a fit model who is sort of. Is she sort of in the middle of your range?
- [04:58]
Diane Scarponi
That's right. That's exactly right. I started. Sizing is a. Is a fraught decision to make when you're trying to do something like this. And what I tried to do was to get as close to the middle as I could. There have been studies done on morphology over time. You know, different people's different measurements. And there was a pretty comprehensive study in the United States that was done for women over 55 or 55 plus I should say. And so I had those standards as a guide. That's not a perfect system, but it's certainly better than a 20 year old size 6 for what I was trying to do. And then from there I tried to find a fit model who was close to those standards as possible and built it out from there.
- [05:40]
Carol Frazier
Yeah, that's actually really interesting because of course every pattern is standardized to some degree. It's just what did you standardize it based on? And you're right, I mean 20 year old or especially a 20 year old from 1942 or whenever it was that they last did a lot of those surveys for patterns is definitely not what we are all now. Even 20 year olds nowadays are different. I think that's very fascinating. So what are you finding is in the mature body that you want to cater to for a better fit?
- [06:14]
Diane Scarponi
Sure. I think the other thing I should mention is I did a lot of research and I talked to a lot of people and I also did competitive intelligence. There are a couple of brands ready to wear brands that are known to serve the needs of mature figures. So I bought their stuff and tore it apart and measured it just to confirm that I was on the right track of what I was trying to do. So in general, the waist to bust to hip ratio is different. People tend to lose that definition as we get older. There tends to be a larger waist in proportion to bust and hip or chest and hip area. The back and shoulders is a big area. Most people over time experience changes to their posture. Our shoulders tend to move forward and all of those changes you talked about about shrinking a little bit tend to happen as we get older. And if something doesn't fit properly in the shoulders, it's probably not going to fit properly anywhere. That's a really key. Everything is hanging off of that point. It's really important for that to be right. Bus points again, my friend, the bus point is in a more rational place. There's more room also in the bicep area and above the elbow. That is a place where flesh tends to accumulate as we get older, regardless of our size. And also above the knee and a few other places like that where we can expect to see changes as we get older or if we again, if we have health issues or we've given birth, had menopause, breastfeeding, all those kinds of things that change that 20 year old youthful hourglass figure.
- [07:56]
Carol Frazier
Yeah. You're describing exactly what I've noticed and in myself. And it's making me think about when you look on the red carpet and you see somebody like Helen Mirren, who doesn't seem to have been affected by a lot of that kind of thing, people that we look at and think, oh, that's what we're supposed to look like. They are, you know, sort of the NBA basketball players of women, essentially, in that they are one in, you know, 10 million or something. To be. To have that perfect figure still when they're. When they're older than 20 something. And we all should just accept that that's probably not going to happen for most of us.
- [08:30]
Diane Scarponi
Yeah. And I really kind of dispute this whole idea of this ideal figure, a perfect figure. I mean, we're all perfect. I mean, we truly are all perfect the way we are. And if. And I actually had people send me emails and say, hey, I'm 70 and I still have an hourglass figure. And I'm like, then, hey, stealth falcon's not for you. Everything else on earth practically is for you. Stealth falconism.
- [08:52]
Carol Frazier
That's right.
- [08:53]
Diane Scarponi
And aside from these fit issues, I talked to a lot of people and they all said what you're saying, that, hey, things just don't fit anymore. It's like you make an adjustment here and make adjustment there, and the pattern starts to look like a jellyfish after a while, and the fit is still not great because you've just made a bunch of adjustments as opposed to getting something that's made for someone like you in the first place.
- [09:15]
Carol Frazier
Yeah.
- [09:16]
Diane Scarponi
The other issue that people talked about a lot is they stopped sewing because of vision accessibility issues. They could no longer read the pattern. The illustrations are tiny. The print is tiny. If it's printed on a tissue paper, it's hard to read the ink on the tissue. And so the other thing that Stealth Dolkin patterns do that's different is have physically, you know, visually accessible patterns. So there's a large print version of all of the instructions in illustrations, and there's very large, bold fonts and bold lines on the patterns themselves so that they are easier to see.
- [09:51]
Carol Frazier
That is a very, very thoughtful thing to do. Even a person whose vision is okay, I think patterns are hard to read. And I agree with you about the pattern instructions being hard to get through. I mean, often if there are multiple views in a pattern, you also are making your way through a sort of a complex set of steps that you have to make your way through. You know, view a versus View B. So that's great. That's actually really something that I don't know if a lot of pattern companies do.
- [10:18]
Diane Scarponi
I don't. I don't think so. I had looked into this and I didn't really find anyone who was. Who was doing this. There were these. Both of these things that I was talking about. And then, you know, the third thing, of course, is just to have some style that is inspired by this figure as opposed to trying to cope with it, you know, having that sort of attitude. It's like, we have to cope with this. The fact that our waist is thicker than it used to be. You know, instead of saying, okay, that's that this is the reality. So let's come up with, say, a pant pattern that is going to work with that type of situation and make it look good. So it's all those things put together.
- [10:57]
Carol Frazier
So your background is in sewing. You don't have a training as pattern in pattern drafting, and you work with a team of people who help you out with this. Can you give us a little introduction to who you have and what their roles are?
- [11:09]
Diane Scarponi
Sure, sure. I have taken classes in pattern drafting. I have an understanding of it, but I'm not a professional in doing this. And I do work with a professional team for everything. For the pattern making itself, I work with Christine Groom, who is a pattern maker in. She lives in California and she's also a custom couturier. She is a really wonderful font of information. She works. A lot of her clients are people in my target area that I'm trying to appeal to for a pattern. So I feel like she really understands the fit, challenges and the way the figure works for older people or people with mature figures. And she also has her own line of patterns called Zigzag Designs. And she makes beautiful jackets in particular. And I will recommend everybody check her out. She has a relationship with a grader who works in the garment industry in Los Angeles. His name is Brian Lee and he does all the grading. And then from there I work with Adriana Aguirre and she's in Oregon and she does all of the graphic design and illustrations. She also works with some other pattern companies. So she knows the home sewer and she knows that she kind of straddles both lines of the home sewer and the production side of design. So that's my whole team. And then I also have some other illustrators and proofreaders and sometimes some help with the website and things like that.
- [12:40]
Carol Frazier
That's great. I think that having all these people who are experts in these different areas. Backing you up on this ensures that you know you're making a good. A good product. I know you have a fit model. Do you send the patterns out for testing by people within your size ranges?
- [12:55]
Diane Scarponi
Oh, yeah.
- [12:55]
Carol Frazier
Have that done too. Yeah.
- [12:56]
Diane Scarponi
Oh, yeah. I have a pool of about 50 testers in. I think it's six different countries who are all different ages and sizes and interests and style and substance. And they all bring a little something to the table, and so they do the final testing in between. Christine usually sews up the first version in muslin to just check her design before she sends it to me. We try it on the fit model. There's usually a couple of rounds of changes. I sew samples myself and then I have like an order of construction, Just a list of, you know, sew this to the A to B and B to C kind of thing. And a professional seamstress goes through it and just gives me some advice on the construction itself, which is mostly like, here's how I'm approaching it. Does this make sense? And sometimes she'll give me ways to do things a little quicker or, you know, if she finds a little something isn't quite right, she lets me know. And then from there it goes, it gets graded. Then it finally goes out to the testers who are home sewers. Decently experienced, but I have some that are more on the beginner end and some that are more on the very experienced end. I like to have a mix of people to get feedback that's really helpful.
- [14:12]
Carol Frazier
Yeah. I feel like now a lot of independent pattern companies have discovered the importance of having testers within their demographic as opposed to the big companies. Probably don't do too much. As far as I know. They sell within their own, within the house. They do their testing there. But I don't think they send out to, you know, consumers. And you kind of want to know what your consumer is going to think about this and whether it's going to fit them and work for them. So that. That makes a lot of sense. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [14:42]
Diane Scarponi
I can't imagine. I can't imagine that sending it out to actual people for testing. And I think it's there. They provide a lot of really valuable feedback and also just encouragement that you're on the right track or, you know, you've designed something that people are excited about.
- [14:58]
Carol Frazier
Right. And if you're. If you're specifically designing for a body type that isn't usually served in pattern designs or ready to wear, then being able to see what these things look like on people's different bodies is really important and really helpful. And it's, I mean, I always love going onto Instagram or looking at, for example, on your website where you have pictures of people who are either your testers or customers who've sent in photos. And I think, oh, that's how it is on somebody who's got those proportions. That's really useful to me to know. So, yeah, I think that's, I think that's something that independent pattern companies in general have really added to the sewing world. For home sewers, you said that you were recognized by the Sew over ageism campaign, and I would love to hear how you feel Ageism is represented in the sewing world versus the fashion world or even the world in general.
- [15:51]
Diane Scarponi
Sure, I have a lot to say about that, but we only have a certain amount of time for this podcast. Okay, just, I'll give you just a little illustration. When I wanted to work with a fit model. When I decided that I really wanted to build my block off of an actual person who was my target demographic. I live in the New York, pretty close to New York City. And I thought, well, it's going to be expensive, but maybe it'll be worth my while to work with a professional fit model. So I called the. There are a couple of fit model agencies in New York City. You can call them up and hire. Hire models. So I called them. I didn't say that I was a pattern, a home sewing pattern company because they don't industry people and home sewing people don't tend to get along very well. I just said, I'm developing a line. My, my target audience is woman over 40 and, you know, gave them my specs and they said, oh yeah, we have some models. We'll send you some model cards. And they sent them and every single one of them was this woman who was 20 or 30, you know, and I called it back and said, no, you don't understand, like this is what I want. And. And they did. It was a complete does not compute situation. They just really didn't understand what I was talking about. I finally found one that sent me one model. There was literally one model. And at that point I had already gone and decided, I'm just going to find someone that I know or some, some person, you know, some real person that I know or a friend or something to try to help out. And it turns out that Meg Green, who is the fit model that we work with, she is pretty much exactly the proportions that I was looking For. And I called her. It was a little off the wall. And I called her and I said, hey, Meg, I know this is kind of weird, but have you ever done any modeling? And she starts laughing and she says, well, yeah, I have, but it's been a really long time. And it turns out that she was a photographer's model at one point in her life. And it actually appeared in this year's catalog, among other places. But to get back to the ageism thing, the so Over Ageism campaign was started by this group, these women on Instagram. And one of them is in Scotland and one of them is in Australia. And there's. It's a global group. It's a wonderful group if you haven't seen them. It's called sew over 50. And they started a challenge to sew patterns where the model on the pattern envelope was an older person. They didn't say 50 specifically. I think they maybe said over 40 even. And it was slim, slim pickings. There were very few. And it was an eye opener because I think a lot of pattern companies do a great job of maybe showing different looks or different races or maybe different sizes even. They're getting better than they used to be about size. But when it came to age, that was the third rail. Nobody wanted to touch that. And I think that it was a big eye opener and they made a stink about it. And they started this so Over Ageism campaign. And I believe that they reached out to some companies and they have a podcast on Instagram. They do all kinds of things. And they said, hey, you should do better. We so too, we've got money to spend and it's not right. And they have moved the needle, but not nearly as much as they hope to. There are a few companies that have. That have always used a few older models, but for the most part continue to use youthful hourglass figured model. And that is exactly the way it is in fashion, too. In Ready to Wear again, it does get better. A lot of the big fashion magazines recently have had older models on the covers. And, and that's great. You know, I'm, I'm all. I'm all for it for seeing an older, an older face on a. On a fashion magazine. But it doesn't help if there's almost nothing in the stores that you can wear. It doesn't really do you any favors. It's like Linda, Val and Jalista. Good for you. But I still can't find a pair of jeans with it.
- [19:47]
Carol Frazier
Or if everybody has to, you know, opt into the strongest type of shapewear to get into anything. That's not how we want to live our lives.
- [19:56]
Diane Scarponi
Probably not.
- [19:58]
Carol Frazier
Yeah. I was doing a little bit of model research the other day too and noticed that there are some, actually I did see some older models and they looked, they just look beautiful. And you just kind of think there just aren't that many of them. And because their measurements are not the measurements of your 20 something year old person, then they're not going to fit into sample size clothing. It's going to be, you know, a whole issue. So within the fashion industry, there are many reasons why none of this is as inclusive as we would like it to be, age wise. And some of them are logistic and I think probably most of them are just a bias against seeing people who are not in the absolute first flush of youth.
- [20:39]
Diane Scarponi
Yep, I agree. I agree. And I also think that, you know what something that's, that goes on a lot with social media that doesn't help is like most of my customers are not on social media. This one customer of mine shows beautiful things and she'll send me pictures of the things that she makes. And I said, oh, could I please share this, you know, my newsletter on Instagram? And she just, she says, I'd rather die. Like, just people. I think that it's somewhat of a generational thing maybe. Also I think that quite a few of my customers have said, you know, I just value my privacy and I don't trust any of this stuff. I'm very wary of social media and I don't want to get involved with it. And so it kind of, it perpetuates this idea that older people aren't sewing because if all you, if all you see is what's on Instagram, you're going to mostly see younger people. And that's another reason why this so over 50 group is so great. And because they, they really get out there and they do really cool stuff.
- [21:36]
Carol Frazier
Yeah, yeah, I follow them and I think it's very inspiring. It is really very inspiring. Yeah. I think social media is great for any, you don't have to post on it, but it's a great place to get inspired by what other people are making. It is, to me, I find it more interesting than a fashion magazine because it's real people wearing real clothes and living their lives, which is nice. I mean, I guess everything might be through a filter, but it's not quite the same filter as Vogue magazine, which.
- [22:05]
Diane Scarponi
Is quite a filter indeed.
- [22:07]
Carol Frazier
Can I ask you how you choose the styles that you are going to offer as patterns. Is this based on your preferences, what you like to wear or what you're seeing people around you dressing like?
- [22:22]
Diane Scarponi
It's part of it. I think that if I was to describe Falcon's aesthetic, it's sort of like, you know, cool college town. You know, it's, that's, that's the general, the look. There are some ready to wear brands that I keep an eye on to see what they're doing. There are some people I know and who I like, how they dress. There's also what I like to wear. There's also what is possible to do with a home sewing machine and, you know, equipment and materials that people can find easily that all plays a part in it. And then it's feedback, you know, it's, it's. I mean, I'm the founder and sort of visionary behind Stealth Elkin, but it does, it takes a group and it. Together we figure it out. You know, people will tell me, you know, what I really need is this. What I really need is that. And I say, okay, then I'll, I'm going to think about it. I'm going to see if I can get something into development that people would, people would enjoy. And it takes all those things to put together a collection. And the idea is that things are meant to work together. So you could make a wardrobe out of style. Falcon patterns for work, for church, for, you know, your life, you know, just going to the grocery store, like whatever it is that you do every day.
- [23:36]
Carol Frazier
Yeah, yeah, that, that seems like a good idea to me. You also had said earlier that you were inspired by silhouettes that you think work on the body type that you're designing for as opposed to, you know, like, let me, let me try to force this, this hourglass look. You know, it, you know, let me, let me do everything I can to make people's waists look smaller. Like, you know, our waist is our waist. It's there. Let's, let's. That's not torture it, Right?
- [24:02]
Diane Scarponi
Right. I think what I tried to do with a lot of my designs is they have some options for color blocking. So if you are a person who say, you know, wants your waist to look smaller, you can, there are style lines in there that you can use to take advantage of that. I made a, one of my best selling patterns is the gorgeous godet top, which has these large diamond shaped godets on the side. And I made one for my mom and I used a, a vertical stripe in the godets. She, she's one of this one, she's like, I used to have a waist. I don't know where it went, but, you know, like, the. The number on the scale is the same, but my waist disappeared. You know, she's 80, and so I made her one. And she loves it because it makes. It makes her feel good. You know, she. But it's. It's long enough that she can wear it with, say, like, you know, a pants and. And it'll. It'll kind of elongates her figure and gives her. Makes her feel like she has a waist and takes care of her belly and things like that.
- [25:02]
Carol Frazier
And I noticed that the illustrations you use for your patterns are solids and drawn so that the garments are solid colored so that it's easy to envision them the way that you might want to sew them in a print. I know that pattern envelope photography is a very big trickster for many people. And they don't bother to look at the back and figure out what the style lines are on a garment. And they just think, oh, I want that big, beautiful, brightly colored whatever. And then when they make it, it's not, you know, the design itself might not be good for them. Maybe that fabric is good for them, but they may not have the right line. It's. To me, it's important to be able to see sort of the bones of the design so you can determine, do you like where those seams are for you? Can you change them if you don't, can you work with fabric so that it gives you the look that you're after? That's a question I have for you too, about is it possible to hack your designs easily? Do people do that?
- [25:58]
Diane Scarponi
Oh, yeah, sure. I have one of my upcoming newsletters. I'm going to do a thing on sleeves because people like to. Sleeves are fun to play around with, and they are pretty easy to hack because you don't have to. It's not, you know, in the core of the garment. Right. Yeah, there's a lot of opportunity for fun with it. I think that a lot of people do get creative with that kind of thing. And color blocking is another thing. And people like trims. You know, it gives you an opportunity to, like, play around with some trims for. Again, to accentuate the style lines. One of my. One of my customers was in the American Sewing Guild fashion show with one of my patterns this past summer in New York. I dress. The Make a Point dress has this sort of modern princess seam in it, and she put piping in it to accentuate that style. Line and to just draw attention to, you know, to that part of her body that she wanted to highlight, you know, in the way this looked. And it was really cool. And it was also just incredible sewing. It was. It was a great design, and it was all very skillfully done and well modeled.
- [27:01]
Carol Frazier
I actually remember that one. I mean, I was aware of your patterns, but it was nice to see. It was nice to see one on the Runway. Yeah. And I saw you there, too, so I saw you wearing your clothes.
- [27:10]
Diane Scarponi
Oh, yeah, Yeah. I wear my stuff almost every day.
- [27:14]
Carol Frazier
Do you wear other. Do you sew other patterns still, or have you given up on that completely?
- [27:18]
Diane Scarponi
I do. There are. There are a few I have. I usually, every year, like to do one big, complex project. So I'm in the planning phases of doing, like, a structured lined blazer because I wanted to learn a little bit more about tailoring. I've done a little of it, but I want to learn a little more. This isn't a pattern that I. I'm not planning on developing that. That type of a pattern right now for South Falcon, but just for myself to wear and also to learn from. There are some, you know, tried and true ones that I. That I've made multiple times because I just really love them. You know, they. I know how they go together really quickly, and I like how they fit and. Yeah, that kind of thing.
- [27:59]
Carol Frazier
So a lot of your designs are not. Some of them seem to be very quick and simple. You have a very easy to sew, I think, dress and top pattern, and then they go up in complexity from there. It looks to me like a beginner could really start sewing with your designs and then move up from there.
- [28:19]
Diane Scarponi
I wouldn't say that South Falcon is a beginner line. I do assume some knowledge of sewing. I think that someone who has some experience could do it. It's another thing that's a little fraught in designing your instructions and illustrations and everything, because you want people to have enough information to get a quality outcome. And. But. But you don't want to handhold a lot of. Like I said, I did a lot of research, and one of the things that was a big turn off for a lot of independent companies in my. With the audience I was trying to serve. Was hand holding excessive. What they felt was excessive hand holding in illustration, in instructions. They felt that it. They found themselves rolling their eyes at all the, you know, press the seam and do, you know, kind of a little too much. And so I was like, okay, well, I'm going to try to Strike a balance here by giving people enough information, but not hand holding. But I think a confident beginner certainly could handle any of my patterns. There's one called the two hour dress, which really does take two hours to make. No fooling. Again, this is two hour dress. Not toil over it for three months dress, so keep that in mind. But it has only a few pattern pieces and it's made out of a. You can make it out of a jersey or something like that. And it's. That would be a very good pattern if you're a beginner or if you are an experience sewer. But you haven't experienced too much with knits. A lot of people are a little afraid of knits because they behave very differently from woven fabric. So that would be a good one for you to try if you were interested in giving it a go.
- [29:51]
Carol Frazier
Yeah. And it's a. It's a great dress because it's very graceful looking and it seems like it could take on all kinds of different looks from fairly sporty to. Jesse, if you have a. I mean, I'm thinking like a, you know, like a burnout velvet jersey, which exists. Those things look nice. Yeah. There's a lot you can do with that.
- [30:12]
Diane Scarponi
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I made one out of a stretch velvet for like holiday wear, you know, and put a little. Just put a little trim around the neckline and sleeves. And I tricked out the sleeves. I did. I made a flutter sleeve again just to. To play with a pattern a little bit. It's just the basic slash and spread to add a little volume.
- [30:33]
Carol Frazier
Yeah, that is a set in sleeve in that. In that design. Yes.
- [30:37]
Diane Scarponi
Yep, it is.
- [30:38]
Carol Frazier
And I'm thinking about your shell pattern. Is that. Is that a raglan sleeve?
- [30:45]
Diane Scarponi
It is. That's a raglan sleeve. And I designed that for a couple of reasons. One is it's a companion piece with the. With the jacket. With the positive space jacket. They both have that. The raglans even. They're meant to go together, but of course, you can wear them any however you want. And I get a lot of people who would say, I can't wear a raglan sleeve. Like, I. I just can't. And I'm like, well, says who? You know, give it a try, Give it a try. And I think that's also been a really popular one. And I think people, like, always on the lookout for a woven T shirt type pattern with just a couple sleeve options. And, you know, it was this whole battle of there's sort of team neckline binding and then there's team neckline facing. It's like, what team are you on? And people have very, very, very well informed and solidified opinions, for the most part, on whether they're a facing or a binding type person. So guess what? You can do either.
- [31:40]
Carol Frazier
Oh, that's interesting. Did they explain why they think they can't wear a raglan sleeve?
- [31:45]
Diane Scarponi
Some people said it had to do with their body shape, you know, the way their shoulders are shaped versus maybe their belly or their. Their chest or what have you. And then other people just feel that it's sporty or it's menswear type of a look. It's not feminine. Everyone has their opinion. You know, maybe it's not for you, but a lot of people do like that. That top. And I like that top. I personally wear it myself all the time.
- [32:08]
Carol Frazier
Yeah, that's. That's interesting. I know that Raglan sleeves come in many different configurations, and I think if you hit the wrong one, where it's got a lot of extra fabric in the upper chest, that may feel like it's too much for you. Or the other way around.
- [32:21]
Diane Scarponi
Yeah, yeah, that's a possibility. I think this. This top also has a. Has a bust dart, and it has a lower bus point, as we've discussed. And then it does have a couple of small darts in the. In the neck line in the back. So you do get it. Yeah, yeah. Which is like, you never see that in a raglan, but you don't. You kind of need that especially for the. Again, for the body type, where maybe you have a posture issue that has developed over time. And so that's another very key piece of the puzzle.
- [32:52]
Carol Frazier
Yeah, that's true. Yeah, that. That back dart, it's underappreciated, and it doesn't exist in almost any commercial patterns anymore. I see. Which is odd. We all have worse posture than back when they used to put those in.
- [33:05]
Diane Scarponi
I know it. And it's funny. And it's not even just. This is something. I even see a lot of younger people with that posture issue, and it is. Of all the. Of all the things that I found about sort of standard patterns, from all the research and experience that I have, that one mystifies me the most. I don't know too many people that have that ramrod street posture in the back. You know, I just. I don't. And I see even you just walk down the street and you'll see people. Everybody's tops and jackets are hiked up in the back because there's not enough fabric for Their back and their shoulders, like almost everybody.
- [33:40]
Carol Frazier
Yeah. And the forward shoulder then also contributes because it pulls it along with you.
- [33:45]
Diane Scarponi
That's right, yeah. Yep.
- [33:47]
Carol Frazier
We're coming to the end of the time and I want to ask you one final question, which is where did the name Style Falcon come from?
- [33:53]
Diane Scarponi
Style Falcon. It was interesting coming up with the name. I originally had an idea for this company and I hired a trademark attorney to file the trademarks. Style Falcon is a registered trademark. And when he went to file my original name, he said, there's something out there that's similar. And I think like you may, it may be okay or you may not be. You'd be taking a chance. And if I were you, I wouldn't do it because if they reject it, then you have to start all over again. And so then I was coming up with different names and I was throwing around all these different ideas. And at the time I had read this wonderful book by Helen MacDonald titled H is for Hawk, about hunting a falcon that she trained for hunting. And it's a beautiful book if you haven't read it. And there were all these hawks, there are all these hawks around in my neighborhood using my neighbor's bird feeder as an all you can eat buffet. And I just thought they were just so beautiful and powerful and interesting. And so I started thinking about this bird themes and, and then when I started doing a little more research on it, I found that there were just all these really negative connotations, associations between women and birds. You know, they're harpies and you know, husbands are hen pecked if their wives are in demanding and chick and bird, they're all these sort of rude terms for women that are bird related. And I thought, well, what if, what if I turn that on its head? And I, I thought, I thought about a bird that was, that was beautiful and powerful and showy and took up her space and just everything I wanted this brand to be. So I came up with Style Falcon. It's a little alliteration and it's kind of fun. And then I had a logo designed and the logo is a falcon, but her wings are shaped like a sweetheart neckline, the negative space. So we have our soft side too, but we also have our beak and our talons and we're ready to, we're ready to do battle if we have to.
- [35:51]
Carol Frazier
Well, I think it's a great name. It really did catch my attention when I first saw it and it was exactly what you said. I started thinking, I bet this is going to be something where there's, it's going to be strength, it's going to be focus, it's going to be graceful and kind of know what its business is, which is really what you get with these, with these designs. I mean, as you say, you could wear them to work, they could be your power suit, they could be your whatever you want them to be. There's a lot of flexibility there too. So. So it is a very good name.
- [36:17]
Diane Scarponi
Thanks.
- [36:17]
Carol Frazier
Oh, I meant to say, are you having new patterns to release soon?
- [36:21]
Diane Scarponi
Yes. Yeah, there are three that are scheduled for release this year. There's another pant pattern. People are desperate for a good pant pattern. So stretch pattern has a couple of options which, you know, I'll talk about later. Pockets. It's always pockets. You'll never not get a pocket in the style Falcon pattern. But I'm also a big fan of hidden pockets. You know, sometimes it's easy, you tuck them in and you can omit them if you don't want them. So I have that going on. I have this, a duster which I was wearing at the asg. I was wearing a prototype of it at the ASG conference last year and I'm right now working on the proportions of the collar for it. It has a turn back cuff and I think I want the collar and the cuff to talk to each other. So I'm working on that. And then there's also a cardigan. And again, and those are in the cardigan, in the pant pattern in particular were things that people asked for. They said, I love your secret jeans. Would you also do a stretch pant? So it's, it's a stretch pant or. And then people were like, you know, some kind of a cardigan that's, that's suitable for making on a sewing machine instead of, you know, sometimes cardigans, like ready to wear cardigans. They're, they're not made on sewing machines, they're knitted. Yes. Something that goes on a sewing machine but doesn't look like it came out of a sewing machine.
- [37:37]
Carol Frazier
Right.
- [37:37]
Diane Scarponi
So I'm working on that. And that is also a zero waste design.
- [37:40]
Carol Frazier
Oh, that's nice. Well, this is going to be really interesting and I will encourage listeners to go read the show notes. That'll be on threadsmagazine.com we'll put links to your website. There will be some photos there for people to look at and, and I. And we'll keep our eyes out for the new patterns as well.
- [38:00]
Diane Scarponi
Great, thanks a lot.
- [38:02]
Carol Frazier
Thank you so much for joining me.
- [38:03]
Diane Scarponi
Diane oh, thanks for so much for having me, Carol. It was really great to talk to you and to tell everybody about the Style Falcon story. And I would encourage people if you go onto my website, which is stylefalcon.net and there's a group you can sign up called the Style Falcon Flock. And that is just my email newsletter group. And you get all kinds of offers and inspiration and promotions and opportunity to connect with other sewers and sew alongs and things like that. So I'd recommend everybody check that out. Plus there's a discount code off your first order. I also have an agreement with the American Sewing Guild and members of ASG automatically get a discount with their discount.
- [38:44]
Carol Frazier
Code on stylefalcon.net that's fantastic. Everybody go to stylefalcon.net thanks. Thank you so much Diane. Thank you to our guest for joining us and thanks to all of you for listening. Please remember to send your comments, questions and suggestions to Thom and please like comment and subscribe wherever you're listening. It helps others find our podcast. Until next time, keep on sewing with threads.