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Spring Cleaning + Underwear of the Month Club = Love

Spring Cleaning with the Underwear of the Month Club

Spring Cleaning with the Underwear of the Month Club – see the undies these tees make next week!

I need to take a moment to brag on my clients. Can I just tell you that La Vie en Orange has the best clients in the universe (that’s more than the world!) :)

For reals.

For this month’s Underwear of the Month Club, we are doing some spring cleaning- in February I sent each Club member an envelope to mail me an old tshirt for March’s undies. Each month I usually mail a pair of undies with a usually exclusive print for Club members only, but not while there’s spring cleaning to do! The packages I’ve gotten back for March’s undies have been filled with amazing tshirts (velvet letters, neon yellow, and goats, oh my!) and love letters for Upitees! I heard…

“I thought the coral ones with rocket ship were my favorite, then the blue ones with racer stripes came, and then the purple fish ones came… I love them all!”

“Thanks for your creativity and fabulous design!”

“I can’t wait to see what you do with this!”

Next week, pictures of the finished products, and a super exciting Spring Cleaning Sale just for you!

xoxo,
Kori

Future panties for Underwear of the Month Club Members

Future panties for Underwear of the Month Club Members

Future panties

Can’t wait to see how this batch turn out :)

Are You Livin’ La Vie en Orange?

Livin la Vie en Orange

How are you living la vie en orange?

Shakespeare knows a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, but La Vie en Orange by any other name? I’m skeptical :)

My best friend came up with the name; orange is my favorite color and on a good day I speak fluent French.  But it’s super fitting in other ways as well.  In French, la vie en rose is about looking at life through rose colored glasses and seeing this hyper-beautiful reality.

I like to think that my company, La Vie en Orange, and its products are a little bit like that too, only brighter, a little bit sun-shine-ier.

So. How do you live la vie en orange? Thinking about the little things in my life, I think it’s by things like:

  • dancing with reckless abandon, pretty much whenever I dance :) Last night it was like Muppets.  You should try it :)
  • skipping and running sometimes just because it’s fun
  • not suppressing squeals of delight (I have no poker face)
  • being creative every day (even if it’s just making dinner or making a game out of walking home from the bus stop :)

So. How do you live La Vie en Orange? Comment below! I can’t wait to find out :)

xoxo
Kori

P.S. If you have a few minutes or need some background music, I love this clip of Sabrina where Audrey Hepburn sings La Vie en Rose to Humphrey Bogart, and of course there’s in the incomparable Edith Piaf… :) And then, en anglais, there’s Louis Armstrong. Oh. And there’s this guy too. He takes his convertible up on two wheels in an amazing way. :) Did someone say Ricky Martin?

Underwear Giveaway with the Non-Consumer Advocate!

Today! For you! A giveaway with the Non-Consumer Advocate! You could win two free pairs of Upitees!

La Vie en Orange Eiffel Tower Undies Close Up

Choose from two of my original silk screens for your panties, should you win!

Katy Wolk-Stanley is the Non-Consumer Advocate, and her whole schtick is “Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without.” She doesn’t buy anything new. Ever! Except underwear! Because used underwear skeeves her out. Well. Do we know a thing or two about alternatives to big box store new underwear? We do. :) So I approached her about my Upitees and she loved them!

She even gave them her “Non-Consumer Advocate Non-Wedgie Seal of Approval.”  I don’t think it gets any better than that.  Swing by the interview to enter!  And see you later this week :)

xoxo

Not Your Average Granny Panties: A Tale of Custom Underwear

Grammie's nightgowns

January and Gwen had special plans for Grammie’s nightgowns

Have you ever had a good idea, and then someone else piggy backs on it into the stratosphere? Best feeling ever!

I love the nostalgia of making your new favorite underwear out of your old favorite tshirt, but twin sisters Gwen and January reached out with an even more touching and special idea.

Gwen explains:  ”In late July my dearest grandmother (“Grammie” as we called her) passed away. My entire family went up to say our goodbyes and go through all her belongings. We sat in a hotel going through her pants, shirts, and nightgowns crying as we looked at each piece. When my sister picked up one of Grammie’s favorite nightgowns and cried because they still smelled like her, I knew we had to hold onto these special pieces of clothing. My sisters and I remembered her wearing these special garments and just could not part with giving all of them to Goodwill. But they were old fashioned nightgowns and not a size that we could wear.

Animal print shirt and underwear

Grammie’s animal print shirt turned into some seriously special granny panties

 

 

“Then I remembered Kori’s site on Etsy ‘Underwear out of your favorite old t-shirt shirt.’ She advertised that she could make underwear out of your own personal shirts. I just knew we had to try to do this. Our Grammie always recycled and reused things (and was constantly on us about doing the same) so what better way to honor her then to recycle her nightgowns and shirts into pieces her granddaughters could wear for a long time.”

Grammie and January at a 2006 Halloween party

Grammie and January at a 2006 Halloween party

January continues:  ”Kori was very sensitive to what we were wanting to accomplish. She was very sweet and willing to turn our Grammie’s cherished items into fantastic underwear that my sister and I could wear for a long time. When I received my first pair it was better then I had ever imagined. I knew the moment when I put them on that my Grammie was looking down on me and so proud. Not only would her memory live on in the underwear, but the fact that we recycled something would have made her even more proud.”

January called me “the underwear angel that was sent to our family when we were in need of uplifting. Seeing what she did with my Grammie’s underwear has brought a smile and happiness to us when we needed it the most!”

Acorn shirt and granny panties

Gwen was excited about this pair being done in time for Halloween- Grammie loved the holiday and often wore this shirt in the fall.

I couldn’t have imagined a more touching and special project.  It meant so much to me to be a part of this process with January and Gwen.  I was so honored that they would trust me with their beloved Grammie’s nightgowns.

I loved opening the packages with the nightgowns and hearing about Gwen and January’s memories of their grandmother.  To be invited into this journey of grief and joy felt like a gift.  It was around the same time that I lost a mentor, and working on this project for Gwen and January helped me grieve Gary and celebrate his life the way January and Gwen were grieving for and celebrating their Grammie.

Gwen and January's Grammie panties

It’s like the Brady Bunch of undies!

 

To January and Gwen:  thank you for inviting me to be a part of something so meaningful in your lives.  I’m beyond thrilled by your response and my heart smiles thinking about your Grammie looking down on you.

To you, dear Reader, if this story strikes a chord or if undies that honor someone’s life and preserve their clothing get you thinking, please comment below or be in touch via email at koriel.jock [at] gmail.com.

xoxo

Tshirts by the Pound

This is what 20+ pounds of tshirts looks like. Yoda, Cookie Monster, the Grinch and a few Disney Princesses all found their way into the haul :)

Tshirts by the pound.  That’s what happened this week.

I came home with nearly 25 pounds of tshirts after a trip to the Goodwill Outlet with my friend Luci from Idle Hands Yarn Supply (she makes yarn from old tshirts).

I’m so excited to dig in and start making some undies with my bounty- buying them by the pound rather than the piece helped me take chances on some undies that I wouldn’t have considered otherwise.  Mostly little kids’ tshirts that would normally be too small, but not this time!

Some of the super cute kids’ tshirts I found at the Goodwill Outlet. Normally, these would have been too small for me to consider bringing home :)

Coincidentally, I’m reading Overdressed:  The Shockingly High Cost of Cheap Fashion by Elizabeth L. Cline.  It’s about fast fashion (think H&M, Zara, Forever 21, Walmart, Costco, Target, etc…) and what happens to all the clothes we buy, the impact on the global economy and American jobs, the environment, and the change in our collective psyche about clothing over the past few decades.  I highly recommend it!

Anyway, there’s a great chapter about all the clothes we donate to Goodwill and the Salvation Army.  I learned that they never want for clothing donations.  Apparently, most of the clothing in stores doesn’t get sold to customers, rather it gets rotated off the sales floor after a month or so, and is then sold to textile recyclers (who make rags or chair stuffing, etc.), or sold overseas, often to sub-Saharan Africa (who, she notes is getting more fashion-forward and pickier about what they’ll pay for).  This way the charity is still making money off of garments they couldn’t sell.

She talks about the “clothing deficit myth” that most of us believe (including me, until reading about it) that “some person in need” would value our castoff clothing (p.s.  It makes me feel awkward to say “some person in need” out loud).  For that reason, until this week, I never chose the best tshirts at the Goodwill- I saved them for “someone who needed them” or someone who get some good use out of them before passing it back to the Goodwill for me to find.

Well.  Not anymore.  If they’re likely going to end up as rags anyway, they might as well end up as fabulous Kori-made underwear.  :)  So I’m excited to not have to be as picky at the Goodwill, and digging through bins and bins of clothing at the outlet with Luci was a ton of fun.  A little competitive (but we look for different things in a tshirt… :)), and a great exercise in teamwork.  :)

How about you?  Any reactions to Cline’s research or ideas?  Are you a thrift store regular (donor or patron)? Please comment below!

xoxo

A Tale of Custom Underwear: Upitees Meet Vulvodynia

Drea’s first ever bespoke undies. She and I discovered that a lot of organic cotton tshirts are chocolate brown… :)

Do you have a pretty predictable fit challenge?  Like you can pretty much count on something usually being too long, too short, too anything?  For my client Drea, there was one fit challenge with underwear in particular that she could absolutely count on (until she met me :)).  Let’s actually start at the end, with her delighted testimonial:

I am a very picky customer. Kori worked with me tirelessly and very graciously to create a set of undies that are absolutely perfect for me. They fit me perfectly and are perfectly comfortable. And I do mean PERFECT!

I have dealt with the pain of Vulvodynia for many years and up until I found Kori, I had never worn a pair of underwear that did not cause me pain. Those days are over. It’s Kori and her bespoke undies forevermore!

-Drea

Can I tell you what an honor it has been to work with her?  After back-and-forthing for months and several iterations of “this works, let’s tweak that,” I couldn’t have been more tickled to hear that we finally got her perfect pair of underwear right!

Before Drea messaged me through Etsy, I hadn’t heard of Vulvodynia.  I learned quickly.  It’s a condition of chronic pain in Ladytown with no known cause.  Degrees of pain vary among women who suffer from the condition, but wearing underwear poses a serious challenge.  Like Drea said, she had never worn a pair of underwear before that did not cause her pain.  Never!  It totally hurts my heart.

So, cautiously optimistic, we embarked together on a journey to craft the perfect pair of underwear.  She was excited about mine because the boy-cut’s center panel was fully lined to the waist (no uncomfortable ridges where the lining ended in a sensitive area).

We talked about fabrics, and I found some soft organic cotton tshirts (best to avoid anything that might have been treated with a harsh or unnatural pesticide).  I emailed her photos of some different options, and moved forward with the one she chose.  I made a pair with a little higher rise, per her specifications, and sent them her way.

I waited anxiously.

She got back to me after a few wears.  They were good, but she needed to cut the lining out, and the elastic bunched uncomfortably around the front part of the legholes.  Did I have any ideas?

Drea bought another pair.  This time, no lining, and with extra care paid to how the elastic was put in.

Better.  But something was still off.  And then!  (I always have my best ideas while running or in the shower.  Never running in the shower, but one or the other.  :))  I realized we could pre-shrink the elastic and then sew it in so that it didn’t bunch around the front half of the leg hole.

Drea loved the idea, so she bought another pair.  And could I cut the waist a little bit lower on these?  Of course.  And maybe shave off a little bit of the fullness from the buns?  Definitely.  And guess what?  They were perfect!  Finally!  Eureka!

Working on so many pairs, Drea and I developed some new prints for the shop, like this bumblebee!

Shortly thereafter, she mailed me back the previous pairs.  This week I’m taking them apart to put the elastic back in and take the waist down just a tad.

And with that, Drea will have a drawerful of undies that fit her perfectly and don’t cause her pain.  Glorious.

This has meant so much more to both Drea and I than than just a few pairs of underwear.  For her, I know, it’s something she’s never had.  For me it’s this incredible opportunity to  be a part of that joy and gratitude.  To craft something special for one woman and her specific needs (no lining, higher waist, less curvaceous bottom and all).  I feel honored by her having shared such an intimate part of her life with me.

And the more I learn about other fit challenges— wide hips, narrow hips, extreme petiteness, plus sized-ness, big booty, no booty, front pouch, strong thighs— the more committed I am to providing a super high quality product, and a safe space to explore what works best for a woman’s unique and beautiful-in-every-shape body.  I love the process, the relationships, and the opportunity to create underwear as unique and cheeky as the women who wear them.  For more about what I do and why, check out my malleable manifesto.  :)

So.  If you’ve ever had a pair (or a drawer full) of undies that haven’t fit you the way you would like, I’d love to hear from you.  Comment below with a horror (or less horrific) story.  Or send an email my way if you’re curious about embarking on your own bespoke underwear journey :) koriel.jock [at] gmail.com

xoxo

Summer Screens

Hello hello!

So this week I’ve been thinking about what the summer will bring, on my undies, of course!  I thought I’d share a few preliminary sketches for some upcoming screens I hope to print on a pair of underwear near you.  Check them out, and please comment below- I’d love to hear which ones you like best, and if you think I’ve left anything out… :)  For extra credit, read all the way to the end for a little bit more about my creative process, at least in the silk screen arena :)

One of the things that’s a fun kind of challenge in creating artwork for screen printing is that the only way you can “shade” in screen printing is through cross hatching or little dots or some other opaque manner.  So it’s interesting to try to figure out how give depth to drawings without shading (like on the planet’s rings)…

I still have another class to take at the Vera Project before I’m ”qualified” for multi-color printing on fabric, so one color printing is another fun constraint…  I’ll take their class eventually and hope to get some multi color printing set up at home shortly there after.  All in good time!  :)

When I have a fabulous idea (or even just a mediocre one- those just usually don’t make it so far in the process…  :)) I generally:

  1. Get my sketch book out
  2. Become paralyzed by the blank sheet of paper (I much prefer to work in fabric- there’s something really comforting about the finite-i-tude of the human body.  The possibilities are somehow not so endless… :))
  3. Stress out a little bit
  4. Decide for the millionth time that the only way I’ll become a better drawer is by actually drawing.
  5. Draw
  6. Erase
  7. Repeat steps 5 and 6
  8. Repeat step 7 as many times as necessary
  9. Sigh
  10. Draw
  11. Smile
  12. Repeat  :)

So what’s your process like?  Which sketches did you like?

Thanks for stopping by!
xoxo

If Worms In a Can Were Sustainable

Hopefully you can see how sparkly this sand on Shi Shi Beach is.  I assure you that it is also warm (those are my feet). And while cute, our worm farm isn’t sparkly or in a can.

Well, dear Reader, I must tell you, I have had an amazing week.  The comments on my interview with Seattle Stevie have filled me up with sparkly warm fuzzies (which are as ridiculous as they sound), and I spent all day Saturday checking out the MBA program in sustainable business at Bainbridge Graduate Institute.

I have been riding the melt of positivity.

Then on Tuesday night, I heard the founder of Patagonia, Yvan Chouinard, in an interview on NPR talking about why there’s no such thing as “sustainability.”  He said it was a bit played out, like “gourmet.”  (Think about everything that you can get that’s “gourmet.”  Did it make you smile? :))  He also said that our impact will never be “sustainable.”  There is something inherently unsustainable about modern life.  Yes.  I see what you mean, Yvan.  Luckily the choices you make (like wearing upcycled undies) still matter.  Accordingly, Patagonia is a huge role model in terms of their corporate practices- paying living wages, their clothing recycling programs and on and on.

Regardless, I’ve been thinking all week about my views on sustainability.  And it seems like a can of worms.  If worms in a can were sustainable.  How did they get in there, anyway?  :)

How do you define sustainability?  I’m working on my definition.  And I promise to share in the not-so-distant future.  :)

So!  Comments below!  Sparkly warm fuzzies to the best “gourmet” product comment, and additional sparkly warm fuzzies for your thoughts on sustainability.  I’d love to hear your musings, and I’ll definitely be revisiting this topic in future posts :)

xoxo

Creativiting

The current mood board in my studio

Dear Reader! How art thou? I am feeling silly and excited and a flurry of activity!

Exciting things lay on the horizon – lots of fabulous feedback from the mens about their undie needs. I heard a lot about “the junk.” But also some really giggly insights like boxer briefs being “not too creepy to cook breakfast in.” And that boxers are “grave danger when biking!”

I’m reading “The Accidental Creative: How to be Brilliant at a Moment’s Notice” and have loved some of Todd Henry’s insights about how to build structure into your schedule to nurture creativity.  He’s got lots of recommendations (which I will now boil down into a neat list of bullet points, but the book is totally worth checking out!):

  • Focus – reframing challenges by asking questions (helpful list in the book) and scheduling time to deeply explore ideas/situation (without being a slave to the next task on your list or email in your inbox- so hard!)
  • Relationships – carefully choosing who you spend time with, and surrounding yourself with mentors and others to bounce ideas off of and energy with (ideas about how to structure this too…)
  • Energy – Planning for how the demands on your energy will be affected by the projects you’re working on; recognizing that compartmentalizing (“work/life balance”) isn’t too realistic when you think for a living (this is a huge one for me)
  • Stimuli - He recommends scheduling time to study things that interest you and paying close attention to the stimuli (news, books, tv, blogs, etc) you take in. Looking for diverse perspectives and dissenting opinions to challenge you in new ways
  • Hours – Giving yourself time to just sit and come up with ideas. About anything. And taking time to create for the sake of creating. For yourself.

I’ve been reading lots of books about business lately (most of the recommendations from Making a Living Without a Job) and visiting lots of museums, but some of the topics Henry explored were challenging.  I sometimes use sewing time to keep up with pop culture and watch terrible tv.  Jersey Shore?  One episode was enough, thankyouverymuch. Toddlers and Tiaras?  Same. Only a little bit of shame… :)

Some of his suggestions were really exciting:  like the importance of exploring topics that are personally intriguing even if you can’t see a connection- I’m planning on reading some of the classics I’ve always neglected.  And maybe studying modern dance.

One quote he cited that really got me was, “We say we waste time, but that is impossible.  We waste ourselves.”  -Alice Bloch. Alice! That hurts! But so true.

So I’m curious about what you do. Do you study or spend time exploring anything completely unrelated to your day job or side hustle? How do you nurture your curiosity and your creativity?  Please comment below!  (Feel free to include any recommendations for classics or dance anything…  :))

xoxo

Surveying the landscape

On their way!

Just a week after International Women’s Day, and all I can think about is what’s going on in men’s pants.  (Note:  I did think twice before typing that, but decided it wasn’t so racy since I’m actually talking about underpants.  :))

So I’m working on branching out into men’s undies.  My women’s boy-cuts are doing well (have you checked out the testimonials?  People say funny things about underwear!), and women’s briefs are on their way.  But I’ve never bought or made boys’ undies before, so I’m looking for men who are open to answering a few questions candidly about their underwear triumphs and fails to help me get started.  It’ll take 5 minutes or so, and I’d love your help spreading the word!

Take the survey here.  Thank you so much!  :)

You can also swing by the La Vie en Orange facebook page and share from there.  And if you have fabulous, cheeky ideas for spreading the word via twitter (I’m @VieEnOrange), please, please, please do!  :)

xoxo

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