beautiful one of a kind creations made by me, using vintage, antique and recycled linens, laces and discarded preloved clothing and haberdashery..
Ive always been around art.. design and creativity.. I don't do well with conformity..
I spent a good part of my teens working at different jobs.. deciding what path I wanted my life to take... not really believing Id found the right one yet.. In my early twenties I started as a Shoe Designer for a Shoe Company in New Zealand.. that lasted for some years with travel to Europe and shoe fairs, pattern cutting and design and the offer of training at a top Shoe Design School in Italy.. but again.. conformity was too restrictive... and I was off around the world on a one-way ticket... over half of my twenties was spent traveling and living in foreign countries... including countries we wouldnt dare venture to now .. how the world has changed.. so very scary...
Im so happy for the experiences Ive had, the people Ive met and the bold tapestry of life, woven together with patches of good, bad and misadventure.. !!
Now back at home in New Zealand, Im settled with my husband of 13 years.. Ive built up my SistersRoseandRuby Etsy store, from scratch with my one of a kind creations ... all made by me... from vintage linens, laces, recycled clothing and anything I think is gorgeously shabby and delicious..
I do tend to concentrate on larger sizes because I feel the market really doesn't cater for women with "real" curves... and we want to look gorgeous too.. !! But I do have some sizes for everyone.. no one should miss out.. ! I just insist on clothing the more lusciously endowed amongst us so we can look Vintage Kitty gorgeous.. lol.. !! My whole journey probably started because of the lack of beautiful larger clothing that I wanted to wear myself.. so I guess I wanted to remedy that..
I'm not comfortable with Etsy's policies that allow large "stores" to mass-produce and drop ship from overseas locations.. this sounds like the beginning of the end to me... gone will be the "little guy" .. the real "hand made" sellers.. like us, that make things from scratch... I hope I'm wrong.. but time will tell..
Please know, if you are looking for something hand made, by an artisan's two hands.. you will find this in my Etsy store... Vintage Kitty Clothing garments are all made by me.. no sweatshops here.. I either make the whole garment from scratch, or if its one of my upcycled garments, it starts life as a preloved piece of vintage clothing, then its chopped, scrapped, embellished and totally upcycled into something unrecognizable.. again , totally by my two hands.. I think that is the definition of handmade... something Etsy bosses may have forgotten.. I hope I'm wrong.. !!