A few years back (come on Jeanne….okay… back in the late 70’s), when I was at college and majoring in Clothing and Textiles, we had a fun opportunity to get published in the newspaper. Our assignment was to create an advertisement for Diane Von Furstenberg’s dress fabrics that were being sold at a nearby fabric store. Anyone remember those slinky prints and the wrap dresses she was so famous for?
Well, that’s what we had to use as the basis for our ads. It was a lot of work for the 30 points it was worth, but the recognition we might receive if our ad was chosen to be in the paper was, well… enough to make us crazy workers for days on end.
The drawings are all on tracing paper and it has yellowed over the years, but I hope you can tell a little bit from them. This first picture was my starting point for my ad. It was just a collection of things I might want to use, catchy phrases, fabric ideas, etc. If you click on the picture, it makes it bigger and easier to see the details.
I started refining my ideas, but was still a little bit unsure about which direction to go…
Okay… I finally got the dress I wanted, but still needed to come up with the ad…
So this was my final ad and I was pretty pleased with it. My professor was too. You can see her remarks on the back.
Sooooo… did I win the contest and get published in the paper? My teacher pulled me aside and told me she wanted to use my ad, but the lady at The Golden Thimble decided to use someone else’s ad because they had BOUGHT STICK ON LETTERS FOR THEIR AD AND SHE THOUGHT IT LOOKED NEATER THAN MY HAND DONE WORK!
Oh well… I can only imagine how famous I might have been if only I had gotten picked! NOT!
See you tomorrow,
Blessings, Jeanne
Jeanne,
You did a wonderful job, and that was a bummer about the other ad using stick-on letters! To me that’s cheating! Well, anyway, if you had gone the “high fashion” route, look what we would have lost! You are first place in my eyes!
Awww… Linda,
Thanks for your kind words…I’m glad I’m not in the fast paced world of dress designing.
I’d much rather be in the face paced world of making doll clothes! I just need to step up the pace a bit or maybe clone myself!
Thanks Linda,
Blessings, Jeanne
Your ad is wonderful, Jeanne. I love it! These days hand done lettering is so much more appreciated and yours is so pretty. Thanks for sharing your work with us.
Wasn’t it great to have so many fabric stores around then? It seems like there was an independently owned store in every town.
Hi Cindy,
You are so right about the fabric stores being everywhere. It used to be that every little town we drove through had one and of course, I always asked my hubby if we could stop. I remember one in Clarksville Tennessee called Pieced Goods and loved it. I wonder if it is still there… and another one comes to mind somewhere in Tennessee too; I think it was called Sticher’s Garden and I’ve never in my life seen a store so jam packed from floor to ceiling with stuff.
Thanks Cindy,
Blessings, Jeanne
I thought your hand done advertisement was really nice, as was the drawing, can’t see the point of the stick on letters myself, but there you go…..win some, lose some as they say! And just think, maybe if you’d won and become ‘famous’….well you’d not have got into dolls, and then where would you be? LOL
Hugs Sharon in Spain x
Hi Sharon,
Yes, think of all the fun I would have missed out on if I had become famous over that ad. I would have gotten a big head and thought I was somebody! Now I’m just a nobody who LOVES to dress dolls! I truly have a wonderful life!
Thanks Sharon,
Blessings, Jeanne