Sara Stonecipher is a visionary. Sometimes it involves lime green or crushed velvet, but this time it involves an immense opportunity for the St. Petersburg fashion community. Stonecipher, owner of Misred Outfitters, has been in collaboration with the Home Shopping Network to offer local designers a chance each month to converse with a few great minds and legends of the fashion industry.
HSN often features big designers such as Steve Madden and Suzan Somers on air and after hosting, these greats have some downtime. In that downtime local designers will be able to pick the brains of these industry leaders during a roundtable discussion. The first test run is this Thursday, September 22 where Stonecipher will sit down with Liz Lange whose maternity line is featured in Target.
“HSN is giving us all access,” Stonecipher said. “Once the first test run is done we are going to put the application together.”
The application will be open for any local designers who want to be involved.
“We want applicants who are serious about design. We will pair them up with designers in the same field as them, a shoe designer with a shoe designer instead of a shoe designer with someone who designs dresses. That way, they can receive real advice to help catapult their careers.”
Those who are chosen will have the chance to be on the set of HSN, tour the studios and participate in a Q&A session.
The meetings will also be beneficial to Stonecipher who is planning to producing her own in house clothing line from scratch.
“It’s a constant learning process when you own your own business,” she said. “At these meetings I’ll be able to learn too and listen to their suggestions.”
Misred also has a reconstructive line which mostly consists of altering existing pieces. Some of these items are already featured in the store but Sara hopes to launch a full line this fall.
A preview of these items will be on display October 21 at the bi-annual 600 Block Fashion After Dark show.
“Usually I lose my mind at fashion shows,” Stonecipher said. “I never like what I have in house, so I reconstruct a garment.”
Misred’s seamstress Samantha Smyth has been furiously sewing away to prepare. Smyth, who came on board in July, loves the creative freedom that Stonecipher gives her.
“I’m self taught, I never took any lessons, so when I first started it was intimidating,” she said. “With Sara though, I have the freedom to do whatever. I’m like ‘I think I’m going to put studs and feathers on this’ and she’s like ‘Go for it!”
One of her favorite pieces to create was a lime green, crushed velvet Kimono meant for Sara to wear to Fashion Week in New York.
“It’s a lot of trial and error,” Smyth said. “You never know what the cut will look like or how it will drape until you create it. When we finished, we were both thinking, how do we break it too the other that we hate it.”
“I didn’t wear a single thing we created to fashion week,” Stonecipher said. “Fabric sucks; it’s a love/hate relationship. When you do it right you are so excited and when you do it wrong…. well now we know not to use lime green crushed velvet.”
Local designers will be able to learn from Sara’s mistakes as well as top designers at the round table meetings. To find out more about the application or the 600 Block After Dark fashion show contact Sara Stonecipher at Misred Outfitters.
