Prada? No, I Made It Myself
Erica Domesek strolled down a busy New York street on a recent morning, Chanel bag in hand, wearing a plaid cape a lot like a recent runway style from Lanvin.
Ms. Domesek didn't spend several thousand dollars on the garment, or even several hundred. She made it herself with a pair of scissors and two yards of fabric that cost her $40.
Just a few days away from turning 30, Ms. Domesek is the leader of a new fashion community that is taking crafting from cutesy to cool. Her slice of the artsy sector known as DIY (shorthand for 'do it yourself') is a far-cry from grandma's country crafts and the perfect, prim projects of Martha Stewart.
DIYers, as they call themselves, are equal parts fashion-forward and frugal. They scour the runways for looks they can recreate quickly with inexpensive materials. The tools they use are the kind most people have on hand岸scissors, pliers, tape measure岸and they steer clear of sewing machines and other heavy machinery. Projects are kept to just a handful of steps that can be completed in less than a day.
Ms. Domesek, like the others, is a fashion enthusiast who admires luxury goods (her Chanel bag is real). But the thrill for her is in the project. 'I see it. I like it. I make it,' is her mantra and that of her three-year-old company and website, P.S.-I Made This.
She carries her iPad in a Prada-inspired clutch she made out of drawer liner, Velcro and orange and pink duct tape. She crafted a version of the black-and-white tassel dress Oscar de la Renta sent down the runway last month by hand-sewing store-bought tassels onto a tank top. She fastened a belt around a canvas bag to make an Herm豕s-like tote and recreated a baroque Proenza Schouler necklace using sculpting clay, a rolling pin and a knife.
Luxury brands could view DIY fashion as a threat or a way of encouraging knockoffs. Instead it is recognizing and embracing DIYers as aspirational young design fans and future customers, who bring fun and energy to stores.
Last month, Ms. Domesek was at Saks Fifth Avenue making hair combs for the industry's recent Fashion's Night Out event. She has made handbags with Kate Spade. She recently has appeared in the East Hampton, N.Y., store of womenswear label Elie Tahari, where she helped shoppers create accessories to go with their purchases.
'The whole idea of DIY is a very new one, especially in the world of fashion,' said Ramona Brodsky, vice president of global marketing for Elie Tahari. 'Erica provided us with a really great way to engage our customers.'
'The aesthetic is very different. I think it's very modern. I think it's very now,' says Janet Balis, former executive vice president of media sales and marketing at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia who has signed on as strategic adviser to Ms. Domesek's fledgling company, which includes the website, a book and a line of DIY holiday kits.
Outside the fashion world, Ms. Domesek has appeared at an event for Coca-Cola's Dasani water, and she drove and blogged about the Ford Edge for several months as part of Ford's 'Ones to Watch' marketing campaign. Some of the projects on her website are sponsored, such as the pencil case she turned into a clutch bag using Sharpie markers. Sharpie featured the bag in an ad in Seventeen and Us Weekly magazines and also supplies her with an endless stream of personalized markers.
Several other personalities are in the DIY trenches with Ms. Domesek, with their own businesses in various stages of development. Jenni Radosevich, 28, has a monthly DIY column in the fashion glossy InStyle and a blog, called I Spy DIY; a book is due out next spring. Erica Chan Coffman, 31, does DIY projects full time for HonestlyWTF, a website she co-edits. 'It's the satisfaction of knowing you've made something yourself,' Ms. Coffman says.
DIYers aren't interested in churning out things to sell; they thrive on showing people how. 'Can I buy that?' is a question Ms. Domesek hears frequently, to which she responds, 'No, I want you to make it.'
Ms. Domesek had that mindset when she was a freelance prop stylist, working on sets for photo shoots and store windows for retailers like Madewell and Anthropologie. When a friend emailed her about a $600 necklace she was planning to buy, Ms. Domesek replied, 'Come over, we'll make it.' The afternoon was a success and evolved into a monthly meeting of girlfriends.
In February 2009, Ms. Domesek wore one of the group's creations to a New York Fashion Week show, where a woman stopped her backstage to ask about her jewelry. 'PS, I made this,' Ms. Domesek said. When the woman asked for the name of her line, she replied, 'I don't have a line. I have a craft club.'
The episode, she says, made her think, 'Wait. Wow. There can be more to this.' Shortly after, she launched her site, psimadethis.com, which led to a book, a collection of more than 25 projects published by Abrams Image last year. It is sold in bookstores and also in teen retailers like Urban Outfitters and American Eagle.
DIYing has given a major shot in the arm to the crafting industry, which covers scrapbooking, traditional needlework as well as hobbies like woodworking. After declining through the recession, sales at national craft-supply chains like Jo-Ann Stores and Michaels Stores are expected to rise about 2% a year for the next five years and hit $4.8 billion in 2016, according to market-research firm IBISWorld. Total U.S. sales of crafting materials at national discount chains, independent stores and online retailers such as Etsy hit $29.2 billion last year, according to a study from the Craft & Hobby Association. About half of all households crafted last year, and the average cost per project was $36, the association says.
Ms. Domesek's rise coincided with the recession. 'People took a beat and said, 'Maybe I shouldn't spend the money. I don't need to spend the money,' ' she says. Her aesthetic continues to resonate in the current uncertainty.
In addition to the content she is paid to create, Ms. Domesek sets aside time to work on new projects out of her Manhattan studio apartment. It is a colorful, sunny space, decorated with a hodgepodge of vintage finds and her own creations. Nearly everything is on wheels, including her sizeable dining table, so her work space can be rearranged to accommodate her projects.
The creative hub is a massive craft closet, though visitors might not recognize the six-foot tall container when it's tucked away. When Ms. Domesek rolls it out, it expands into a giant and carefully categorized storage space with drawers with labels like 'tulle' and 'tubes.' Her tools are gold-colored metal or spray-painted to look that way.
Next up for Ms. Domesek: expanding her reach into products. The holiday DIY kits she has designed are slated to be sold at C. Wonder, a fashion and home-design store that Chris Burch, ex-husband of designer Tory Burch, is planning to open soon in New York's Soho neighborhood.
There are kits for decorating wine bottles, creating coasters or personalizing holiday cards. Each is expected to retail from $28 to $38.
约潮人引领DIY时尚
艾丽卡·德梅萨克（Erica Domesek）在近日的一个清晨漫步于纽约繁忙的街头，手上挽着香奈尔皮包，身穿斗篷状的方格呢外套，很像朗凡（Lanvin）最近的时装表演中的样式。
德梅萨克没有为这身行头花费几千美元，甚至连几百美元都没有，她用一把剪刀和两码布料自己制作，只用了40美元。
还有几天就30岁了，德梅萨克是一群时尚人物的代表，他们用自己的手艺化腐朽为神奇。她的艺术领域被称作DIY（do it yourself 自己制造）,与老祖母的乡下手艺及玛莎·斯图尔特（Martha Stewart）的完美、古板设计有着天壤之别。
DIY者（他们这么称呼自己）既处于时尚前沿又节俭朴素，他们搜寻时装表演中的穿着，迅速用廉价的材料再创造。他们所使用的工具是多数人手边都有的：剪刀、钳子、量尺，而且他们不用缝纫机和其他重型机器，设计的过程只有五个步骤，不到一天就能完成。
德梅萨克和其他人一样热衷时尚，崇拜奢侈品（她的香奈尔包是真的），但是设计的过程令她觉得兴奋，“我看到、我喜欢、我制作”是她的格言，也是她成立三年的公司和网站P.S.-I Made This的信条。
她把iPad装在灵感取自普拉达（Prada）的提袋里，她用抽屉的衬里、魔术贴及橘色粉色的胶带制成这个袋子。她缝制了奥斯卡·德拉伦塔（Oscar de la Renta）上个月在服装展示中推出的黑白两色的穗裙，把商店里买来的穗子缝到吊带背心上。她在帆布包上结了一条皮带，做成爱马仕式的手袋，用雕塑陶土、口面杖和一把刀再造了普罗恩萨·施罗（Proenza Schouler）的一条巴洛克风格的项链。
奢侈品牌可以将DIY潮流视为一种威胁，也可以将之看作鼓励仿冒行为的做法。但是奢侈品牌却承认并且接受DIY者，把他们当作志同道合的年轻粉丝和未来的消费者，他们给店家带来乐趣和能量。
上个月，德梅萨克在萨克斯第五大道（Saks Fifth Avenue）百货店里，为业界最近的“摩登不夜城”活动（Fashion's Night Out）做梳子。她与凯特•斯蓓（Kate Spade）一起做过手袋，最近她还出现在纽约东汉普顿（East Hampton）的艾丽·塔哈瑞（Elie Tahari）女性服饰店，帮助购物者制作与其他物品搭配的饰物。
艾丽·塔哈瑞的全球市场副总裁雷蒙娜·布罗德斯基（Ramona Brodsky）说：DIY的概念是很新的，特别是在时尚世界。埃丽卡给我们提供了一个与顾客建立密切关系的绝好方法。
玛莎·斯图尔特生活多媒体公司（Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia）的前媒体销售及市场执行副总裁珍妮特·巴利斯（Janet Balis）说：审美观是各式各样的，我认为它很摩登，很现代。巴利斯已经签约成为德梅萨克羽翼未丰的公司的战略顾问，该公司推出一家网站，一本书和一系列节日用品DIY工具盒。
在时尚世界之外，德梅萨克出现在可口可乐Dasani瓶装水的推广活动上，她驾驶福特锐界（Ford Edge）汽车几个月，并且撰写相关博客，作为福特公司Ones to Watch推广活动的一部分。她的网站上的一些方案获得广告商赞助，例如她用三福记号笔把文具盒变成提包。三福公司（Sharpie）在《Seventeen》和《Us Weekly》等杂志的广告中以这种手袋作卖点，并且给德梅萨克提供了大量的个性化记号笔。
在德梅萨克的DIY战壕里还有其他几位人物，他们都在不同程度上发展着自己的生意。28岁的珍妮•拉多斯维克（Jenni Radosevich）在时尚杂志《InStyle》上有每月一次的DIY专栏，有一个博客叫作DIY观察（I Spy DIY），明年春天还会出一本书。31岁的埃丽卡·陈·考夫曼（Erica Chan Coffman）为HonestlyWTF全职做DIY设计，HonestlyWTF是一家她参与共同编辑的网站。她说，知道自己能做什么东西带给人满足感。
DIY的人对做出东西去卖没有兴趣，他们通过告诉人们如何做出东西而致富。“我能买下来吗”是德梅萨克经常听到的问题，她的回答是：不，我想让你自己做出来。
德梅萨克在做自由职业设计师时就有这样的头脑，她为Madewell和Anthropologie等零售店设计照片和橱窗。当一位朋友给她发邮件，告诉她想买一条600美元的项链时，德梅萨克回答说：你过来，我给你做。那个下午德梅萨克做成了那条项链，由此演变成她和女性朋友每月一次的会面。
2009年2月，德梅萨克戴了她们这群人的一件作品参加纽约时装周秀，一名女子在后台拦住她问她的首饰的来历。德梅萨克说：是我做的。那名女子问她产品系列的名称时，她回答道：我没有产品系列，我有一个手工制作俱乐部。
德梅萨克说，这个小插曲让她想到，“哇，应该有更多的类似情况吧”。不久，她开创了自己的网站psimadethis.com，出了一本书，去年由Abrams Image出版，书里收集了超过25项设计方案。这本书在书店里有售，也在Urban Outfitters和American Eagle等商店里售卖。
DIY给手工艺界带来重大冲击，这个行业涵盖剪贴薄制作、传统的缝纫工作以及一些业余爱好，例如木工手艺等。根据市场调研机构IBISWorld的资料，经历过经济衰退的低迷之后，全国的手工艺品连锁店如Jo-Ann Stores和Michaels Stores的销售量预计在接下来的5年内每年都可增长2%，到2016年可达48亿美元。依据Craft & Hobby Association的研究报告，美国的工艺品在全国的折扣连锁店、个体商店和网络零售店（例如Etsy）的销售总量去年达到292亿美元。该机构说，大约半数的家庭去年自己做手工，每件作品的平均成本是36美元。
德梅萨克与经济衰退机缘巧合，她说：人们受到冲击后会说，或许我不应该花钱，我不需要花这个钱。她的审美观在时下的不确定性中继续获得共鸣。
除了接受酬劳制作东西之外，德梅萨克还拨出时间在她的曼哈顿开间公寓里为新的设计而工作。这是一个多姿多彩的住所，阳光充沛，点缀着各种古色古香的东西和她自己的作品。室内几乎所有的东西都装了轮子，包括她的大餐桌，这样她的工作空间就能重新安排，来装下她自己的作品。
创作的中心所在是一个大大的工艺壁橱，当它被掩藏起来的时候，访客们可能意识不到这个6英尺高的储物柜的存在。当德梅萨克把它拉出来的时候，它展开成一个巨大的精心分类的储物空间，有标着“薄纱”、“软管”等标签的抽屉。她的工具是金色的金属物或者被用喷漆弄成那样的颜色。
接下来德梅萨克要做的是：把自己的创造扩大到产品领域。她设计的节日DIY工具拟在C. Wonder商店出售，这是一家时尚和室内设计商店，由设计师托利·伯奇（Tory Burch）的前夫克里斯·伯奇（Chris Burch）开办，计划不久在纽约的苏豪区开张。
德梅萨克设计的工具盒有的被用来装饰酒瓶的饰物，有的用来制作杯垫或个性化节日卡片，每种工具盒的零售价定在28美元至38美元之间。
整理：吕佳琦