No Throwback To Pre-Feminist Days, High-Fashion Sewing Is Booming In The Northwest

There was a time when Karen Mull Griffin hardly bought any clothes, though she always had plenty to wear. In those days she made her dresses, sportswear, swimsuits, even her lingerie. Having learned to sew at age 4 from her mother and grandmother, both expert home sewers, Mull Griffin made her first real outfit, a jumper, in the third grade, and wore it proudly.

These days Mull Griffin, 39, buys her lingerie. But she still sews much of her wardrobe. A few years back she made a black-and-white dress from a pattern by designer Albert Nippon "that always just blows people away." When she was pregnant two years ago with her third child, she stitched up a collection of maternity clothes appropriate for her job as a Seafirst Bank branch manager.

A self-described "long-waisted, sway-backed petite," Mull Griffin says she sews because she's a stickler for perfect fit. But that's not the only reason she sometimes skips housework, chooses not to cook for the weekend, or gets up an hour early to sew in her pajamas before going to work.

"I can't afford to buy the quality clothes I like," she said, "but it's more than that. When you have a job like being a lawyer or a banker you need creativity, which you don't necessarily get at work. Innovating with a pattern book and fabric means I can make something unique. I love that."

Mull Griffin is not alone. Though the image of a woman bent over a sewing machine in the family recreation room still strikes many as an icon of the bad old pre-feminist days when women were groomed to be domestic goddesses, plenty of women today sew apparel. High-tech sewing machines costing as much as $3,000 sell briskly in the Northwest, and classes, workshops and seminars on such advanced subjects as fitting tailored pants and copying Armani jackets fill as quickly as they are announced.

Enthusiasts, meanwhile, haul their sewing machines off to weekend retreats in places such as Vashon Island or Portland, where for several hundred dollars they spend long weekends with 20 or 30 other home sewers and several instructors, sewing machines humming late into the night in rented cabins. Food is catered while the women stitch up everything from evening gowns to tailored wool suits.

Lynn Van Hollebeke, a 31-year-old Kirkland nurse, so enjoys a retreat held each fall on Vashon that she brings along her mother from Florida. "Last year I finished something like six projects at the retreat, " said Van Hollebeke.

Back in fashion

Though no one is suggesting that apparel sewing, or "fashion sewing" as it is called in the industry, is nearly as prevalent as it was in the '30s, when Depression-era women sewed to save money, or the '40s, when patriotic women sewed their clothes so factories could churn out soldiers' uniforms, or even the '50s, when Betty Crockeresque housewives whipped up matching mother- and-daughter frocks in the morning and tuna casseroles in the afternoon, there are signs that fashion sewing is back in fashion. Especially in the Northwest.

(The exploding segment of the sewing industry everywhere in the U.S. is the arts and crafts side of the business. . Quilters and craft sewers account for much of the growth in the home-sewing industry, which The Sewing Fashion Council, a New York industry organization, estimates is today worth $4.5 billion. That is nearly double the dollar amount spent by home sewers in 1985.)

At Northwest Sewing, a Seattle and Bellevue sewing machine shop that offers sewing classes, the 20 to 40 classes given every two months often fill up, says co-owner Lilette Player. (The store is also one of the top five U.S. dealers of the Swiss-made Berninas, the Mercedes Benzes of sewing machines.) Classes also fill swiftly at Lake Washington Technical College in Kirkland, where the 50-some-year-old sewing program is highly acclaimed. It offers about 30 classes a quarter in everything from basic sewing and serging to building customized dress forms.

And though the day is long gone when carriage trade department stores sold fine fabrics - Frederick & Nelson had a fabric department until the mid-'80s - the Northwest is a veritable Rodeo Drive of independent fabric stores selling high-quality "fashion" fabrics, according to Pati Palmer, a Portland entrepreneur nationally known for her sewing workshops as well as her publishing company devoted to books and videos for apparel sewers, Palmer/Pletsch Publishing.

"The Northwest has by far the greatest number of independent fabric stores in the U.S.," said Palmer.

Who sews?

Trying to generalize about who sews fashion apparel is difficult. Certainly most are women, though sewing instructors say a few men are starting to take classes. And most are women who can tell the difference between well constructed clothes made of high-quality fabric and sloppily made stuff. They're also picky about fit, and understand that even if they could afford to buy the best, say a $2,000 Armani pantsuit, it's not going to fit well unless they're perfectly proportioned, willowy, and at least 5 feet 8 inches tall.

Beyond that, the profile varies. Some fabric store owners lament that their best customers are older professional and retired women, and that younger women and teenage girls aren't sewing.

"As time goes on, I think there will be fewer and fewer fashion sewers," said Joyce Cronkhite, owner of Contemporary Fabrics in Bellevue, one of the area's best stores for fashion sewers. "Career women don't have the time and since they've taken sewing out of schools, people aren't learning it young."

Indeed, sewing hasn't been mandatory in most school districts since the '60s. But Sandra Betzina, a San Francisco sewing instructor, author and high-profile industry guru, says young women today are taking up sewing: "One of the biggest groups I see is aged 25 to 28. They're out of college, not on Dad's charge card anymore. They have jobs and need nice clothes, but they're working for $10 and $11 an hour. They take a class and find out they can make a nice pair of pull-on pants. They have some success with that and move onto something harder."

Jenny Meyer, 24, makes a lot of her clothes. Though armed with a degree in apparel design from Seattle Pacific University, she is by no means a typical home sewer. And she admits that from the vantage point of her job as a saleswoman at Nancy's Sewing Basket on Queen Anne, one of Seattle's best resources for fashion sewers, she doesn't see many young female customers. Still, she says many of her friends are learning sewing.

Patricia Hensley, 47, a Seattle attorney for the Federal Trade Commission, learned the basics from her mother but didn't get serious about sewing until she got out of law school. Then, as a young lawyer in Washington, D.C., she started taking sewing classes. Since then she's taken dozens. When she's not quilting, a hobby she recently picked up, she likes making tailored jackets. She says she sews because she enjoys the creativity it involves and "because it bugs the heck out of me to pay a lot of money for junk, which is mostly what you see in the stores."

Betzina, the San Francisco sewing instructor and author, says her strongest following is among "the sewing fanatics. The people who just love sewing. They love handling the fabric, planning the project, pulling it together."

Nira Nelson, a woman with impeccable taste and apparently unlimited energy, fills the bill. A quality-control specialist at Northwest Tissue Center, Nelson, 56, finds sewing clothes so compelling that "on a really good week I might put in 40 hours of sewing if I'm tailoring a jacket."

Sitting at a desk all day poring over tissue samples means Nelson is most comfortable in chinos and sweater, which she likes to top off with jackets she's made. She also does occasional custom sewing for others and makes herself dresses and fancier clothes for after hours. Unlike some other elite home sewers, Nelson didn't sew seriously until she was a young mother, when she started taking classes at Lake Washington Technical College.

"I like nice clothes, and I can't afford to buy everything I want," said Nelson. "I also enjoy working with my hands. And I love the compliments."