May 4, 2007

Recycling: Feels good, looks great

Children's clothing designer makes old new again

By Adria Murray / Los Gatos News Staff Writer

In the world of children's clothing there has always been one tried-and-true method of recycling, known to mothers in most circles as "hand-me-down." But as children's clothing has begun to mirror adult trends in fashion, eco-friendly, style-conscious clothes have entered the mainstream, and recycled children's clothing has taken on new meaning.

At this year's San Francisco Fashion Week, Aug. 22-26, Wee Scotty children's wear designer Lynne Gallagher will debut her line of "green" styles and thrift-store refashioned pieces during her third annual runway show, titled "RRRIIIPPP!"

Growing from the idea of reusable resources, Gallagher and her 11-year-old daughter Leah, a budding fashion designer in her own right, began scouring thrift stores and the Goodwill for garments they could rip apart and reassemble into new, schoolyard-savvy styles for the spring 2008 collection. No stranger to the concept of retooling the new from the old, Gallagher has created garments in the past from donated end cuts from men's suits and refashioned them into boy's pants and pleated skirts for girls.

A designer who currently employs "green" fashion practices at her Union Street boutique in San Francisco, Gallagher's spring collection will continue that trend by featuring organic cotton and soy-based fabrics.

"It takes 63 one-liter bottles to make a sweater," Lynne said, shuffling through a rack and pulling out a faux-fur jacket she was proud to say was made of recycled plastic.
Gallagher also reuses many her most popular garments' patterns each season, like the asymmetrical tie-neck top that gets updated with colorful new seasonal fabrics. "It's just like the staples you would find at GAP each season," she said.

This season Wee Scotty has introduced its first offering of swimsuits. "Aren't they cute," Gallagher said, showing off a sweet ruffled, cherry-print bikini.

A believer in creating garments that can "grow with the child," Gallagher pre-washes and pre-shrinks most of the fabrics she uses and leaves generous hems on garments that can be altered for free at any time. Ranging in price from $20 to $225 dollars, Wee Scotty sells many everyday ready-to-wear items as well as special occasion pieces - and some that only a child could love, like the rainbow-colored, glittery eyelash fabric "Happy Birthday Pinata" pants.

Wee Scotty opened in Mill Valley in 2001 and occupied the building where Banana Republic first got started. "76 East Blithedale - I got good karma from there," Gallagher said. But the San Francisco resident grew tired of the daily commute and eventually decided to move her store to its current location at 2266 Union Street in 2003.

Since then, the former rock concert tour seamstress has been busy creating bold, funky youth clothing and teaching young fashionistas how to sew their own clothing during weekly classes in the back of the Wee Scotty boutique. Students learn all aspects of creating an outfit, from putting their ideas down as sketches on the drawing board, to cutting and pinning the patterns and finally sewing their very own garment.

"During the first class, the student is learning how things are sewn together," Gallagher said. "By the third class students get it, they see how things are sewn inside out - the inseam is sewn second, and so on."

Beginning June 18, Gallagher will host a special series of classes for kids dreaming of designer stardom that will culminate in a friendly fashion competition. "We're calling it 'Project Junior Runway,'" she said. Over the course of four days, students will create an entire outfit from top to bottom and compete for the title of Outstanding Designer, who will be the featured youth designer in the Wee Scotty SF Fashion Week show. Judges for the competition will include a representative from a local fashion school, a corporate fashion company representative, a nationally recognized local designer (to remain unnamed) and one judge in the students' peer group (also to remain unnamed).

And speaking of stylish design mavens in the students' peer group, Gallagher's daughter Leah, who last year designed a group of ensembles for Fashion Week inspired by San Francisco landmarks and several fashion decades, recently won a national Viking sewing machine competition for an embroidered black-and-white houndstooth check jacket and corduroy pant combination of her own design. For all her hard work (and the frustrating amount of time she spent scanning the houndstooth check pattern into imaging software to create embroidery details), Leah was awarded a newfangled Huskystar ER10 Viking embellishing machine.

"I love my machine," Leah said excitedly, petting the top of her Huskystar. Designed to take loose, untwisted fibers and mesh them into the grain of fabrics, the machine with no bobbin, no thread and five needles has sparked a curious search for new ways to use the machine - and reuse raw materials.

"We're going to start dyeing dryer lint and see what that will look like," Gallagher said. And the recycling trend continues.