Toile La La Book - Part One.

I hand-bound my book - full of my fashion drawings and ideas - with bright red Coptic-stitching, and I tailored for it a transparent (vellum), removable dust jacket topstitched with the same bright red. It's a fat (and I think the perfect size!) little book. I'll share here some photos of my book. Look for more posts giving you good peeks at the rest of it.

Here, my book without its jacket... you can see the red coptic-stitched spine.

Close-up image of red Coptic-stitches. Toile La La.

I only made 10 of these 120-page coptic-bound books. 5 of them include fabric swatches, photos, even original artwork.

My handwritten letter, included with each book. Toile La La.

Zoom image of book wearing its transparent vellum dustjacket, topstitched in red thread - made by me.

In the 80s, I loved designing shoes and boots of all sorts... here - some boots with 80s scrunched socks : )

My 80s shoe design - with a grosgrain bow... a white shoe, worn with black ribbed tights.

I loved my Nana - my first fashion inspiration. Here, a drawing of her white, perforated wedding shoes. When I drew them, I thought they were called winklepickers - but that was another shoe style she wore. Her wedding shoes were a lower, chunkier heel of the late 30s/early 40s.

In addition to the fashion I saw or imagined, I've included music and pop culture influences which caught my attention in the 80s.

Pages featuring fashion magazine tearsheets I pasted in my scrap/sketchbook. I often painted or collaged over these, then made notations around them.

Endnotes with more details about my 80s sketches and fashion tearsheets/collages.

Tearsheets from fashion magazines - pasted into my sketchbook. I loved these romantic and exotic images.

I loved lace - the way it simultaneously concealed and revealed the body.

More of my 80s fashion illustrations.

I made a zine too - larger images, less pages, stapled, less commentary.

An 80s self portrait (more or less) - wearing a 40s hat.