Satin Stitches - Celebrating 30 Years of Custom Dance Costume Design!

Satin Stitches | Jun 04, 2008 | 0

Ballroom Costume Designed During our First Decade

Sometimes we let those big birthdays and anniversaries pass by, without big celebrations.  We did that for my husbands last big day, and that is what I plan to do for my next decade birthday, also.  We really do not want to know how many years OLD we are, now!

Well, that is what happened when Satin Stitches entered our third decade!  Maybe I am a little blase about this milestone, as I know that I really did not get into the swing of things until the summer of 1978.  And now, it is summer.  And it has been 30 YEARS.  So maybe the celebration begins RIGHT NOW!

For those of you that do not know the REAL history of Satin Stitches, here goes!  It has been an interesting journey.

Dress Designed Recently - for the Kanye West "Glow in the Dark" Tour -After Party dancers

It all really began back when I was about 5 years old.  I had my favorite doll, and she did not have many clothes.  She arrived with only one outfit.  I thought she needed to have many, many outfits!   I asked my Mom to help me to sew some dresses for her.  

Because I was the oldest of 5 children, growing up on a dairy farm in the Midwest, my mother really did not have time to sew doll clothes for me, nor really take the time to help me with the project.  I asked, and received some how-to advice and started on my career!  

I created my own patterns, scrounged fabrics and trims from my mothers sewing cabinet, cut out my little garments, and then hand-sewed hundreds of little designs.  All this when my friends were just having tea parties with their dolls.  I continued my hobby all through grade school!  My doll did not have tea parties, she just put on fabulous clothes, and then changed into another fabulous outfit!

I then graduated into designing for myself during high school, eventually realizing that I wanted to turn this into a career, after a brief period when I wanted to be an astronaut!  After earning my BFA degree at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design with a major in Fashion Design, I started my professional career in Minneapolis.  

I worked for two womens clothing manufacturers.  I started as an assistant designer and patternmaker for one company and then moved to Daj, Inc., where I ended up as head patternmaker and head of the cutting department, along with continuing to be the assistant designer, working hand-in-hand with the designer and samplemaker, in creating high quality bridge apparel.  After working for about 4 years, I knew that I wanted to start my own business and get into costuming.  

I filed my business name, and put an ad in the yellow pages, in April 1978.  Before the Internet, this was what you did.  I listed costumes and wedding gowns as my specialties.  At the beginning, I custom designed square dance dresses, with matching mens shirts, I created pageant gowns and costumes and unusual wedding dresses.  I worked at my day job, 40 hours per week, and put in about 40 hours at my new business, for about 6 months before I decided that it was time to cut the cord, and concentrate on Satin Stitches 100 percent.  

I made the plunge in October of 1978.  I started wearing all the hats.  I did the marketing, I designed, made the patterns, cut the garments, sewed and embellished the garments, did all the fittings, and shipped or delivered all the garments.  I did really have all of these talents, but after doing the business full-time for about 4 months, I started to hire my first sewers, to help me out.  

I continued adding employees, including someone to help cut and answer the phones, until I had about 6 employees, all in my basement!  It was really crowded, with a cutting table, many sewing machines, bolts of fabric and all the threads, zippers, elastic, sequins, and so on, to create great costumes.

Within a year of starting, I was creating ballroom gowns and matching mens outfits, and within a few years, Satin Stitches was designing high school dance team uniforms.  Along the way, various genres of costuming have been more, or less popular with our clients, including figure skating and synchronized skating team costumes, colorguards and frontlines for marching bands, show choir costumes and all types of individual entertainers and various performers costuming.  And of course for professional cheerleaders.

In 1989, the opportunity arose, where I decided to lease a separate space for Satin Stitches.  We moved everything out of my house over Labor Day weekend, and we have stayed in this space ever since.  A neighboring tenant at the mall, where we are located, went out of business, so in 1994, we doubled our space.  With a few remodelings, this is where we remain, today. We have our showroom and production facility all together, and are open by appointment.

Our clients have changed and transformed over the years, but we remain consistent with what I started 30 years ago.  We create unique custom designed performance costumes.  Bridal gowns?  Well I consider those performance costumes, too!  

Have we done exotic, stripper costumes?  Yes.  Have we done wrestler costumes?  Yes.  Have we done drag queen costumes?  Yes.  Have we done choir robes?  Yes.  Have we done Renaissance costumes?  Yes.  Have we done authentic Norwegian peasant costumes?  Yes.  OK, I think you get the idea!  You can see some of the unique costumes we have made over the years, on our UNIQUE  web page.

Today, our biggest customer base is high school and college dance teams.  Our first dance team uniforms were created about 3 years after we started, and this segment of our business really took off.  Our second largest customer group is professional NBA, NFL, Arena, and various other pro, and semi-pro cheerleaders and dance teams.  Our most prestigious professional dance team is the New York Knicks City Dancers, based out of Madison Square Garden in Manhattan.  We have been working with this NBA dance team for about 15 years now.  I am proud to say that I have been able to watch these talented dancers at Madison Square Garden, wearing Satin Stitches costumes three times.  What a thrill!

This last season we worked with the Knicks director, Michelle Harris, to perfect and then manufacture three different looks for the team.  They were all designed as a new branded look for the dancers.  We are very proud of the results.  

I am so proud of all of our clients.  They are able to perform in front of sometimes millions of fans, wearing our Satin Stitches costumes and uniforms.  There is no bigger thrill, other than being proud of my husband and children, than to watch our costumes perform on stage.  But then, I guess all of the thousands and thousands of costumes that Satin Stitches has created over the last three decades, are all my children, too!  

If you have not taken the time to look over our business, please do so.  We have so much helpful information, of all sorts, on our website at www.satinstitches.com.  We would love to add you and your group to our client list!

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Teacher, Enthusiast, Parent, Studio, Costume Design, Costumes (all tags)