How I Made It: 2021 Pride Jumpsuit
This jumpsuit was a collaboration between me and Paul Gallo, a San Francisco-based designer and teacher; This is his Etsy.
The silhouette and flat pattern is all his design. In working with him this summer, I noticed a jumpsuit he had made hanging in his studio. He made it from up-cycled fabrics for a wedding he had attended recently.
“Can I … try that on?” I asked.
It fit so well, especially in the waist and butt. I loved the contrast of a fitted midsection, and volume in the pant and blouse. His version he calls “Victor / Victorian”: a corseted waist, gathered sleeves, a ruffled collar, and a pleated top that gives it more volume.
Aside from borrowing a Pikachu onesie during Gaymer event days, I somehow never owned a jumpsuit. Certain ones caught my eye over the years, in particular this sequin number from Slick It Up. My Pride efforts in 2019 led me to make an iridescent pair of sequin overalls, which in some ways, felt like my first romper. The sequin part of them was only somewhat successful; As predicted, the sequins rubbed up against my thighs during the parade. I only wore this garment once, but it inspired me to make more overalls that I still manufacture on occasion.
I asked Paul if I could make a version of his jumpsuit but change a lot about it: black denim, no sleeves, and a print I’d been developing and manufacturing from local artist Rafael Arana.
Paul said yes; An overly nice gesture in my view, even in a mutual collaboration that we have. I plan to cut him in for profit if I ever get this jumpsuit to market.
The main groundwork was already done in the jumpsuit he made, so aside from cutting out pattern pieces, we had to decide placement of Arana’s graphics on different parts of the jumpsuit. This was sort of my casual Pride look on every other day I wasn’t in the dress — which I only planned to wear one day — so I wanted a only a couple things: “Pride” and “love” to be visible on the front part of the jumpsuit, and rainbow lines to be on the front, too. After some deliberation, I settled on the rainbow lines coming in at my torso. My Pride diet hadn’t been going exactly according to plan, so I thought the rainbow lines would be slimming.
The whole project turned into a jigsaw puzzle: a high collar, four pockets, and eight corset pieces made up Arana’s prints.
Not knowing what I wanted at first, I printed some insane large $70 piece of denim from my trusty UK fabric printer. It is an important aside to describe what it takes to make these fabric prints. In Arana’s case, I was lucky enough to receive from him some vector drawings of what he planned to paint at the Detour bar at 2200A Market St., San Francisco. I combined those images with others taken by photographer Darryl Pelletier, who I hired along with Topher Olson to get shots of murals during the pandemic. I later converted that artwork into face masks.
With the Detour print especially, there was a lot of color correction to get those photos to work on a black background, and then an entire puzzle of layers in Photoshop to arrange. I didn’t know what I’d end up using, so I just lined up panels I’d made for my tank top. Ultimately, we ended up hacking that up into different square segments.
Although Paul had enough left over to make fabulous shorts.
Then came the facing, a term that’s relatively new to my understanding of apparel: it finishes raw edges on the inside of garments. Paul taught us about them in his draping class at CCSF, but I remember it was the one area of my first dress that I thoroughly botched. I remember being so proud of myself generally for the piece and then the T.A. coming over, looking at the dress up and down, and saying, “It’s alright, you’ll do better next time” — haha.
Still, I knew I wanted a facing on this jumpsuit: I’d found this gorgeous short-fur glitter fabric at Mendel’s. And Paul was 100% right that when people saw it later on the inside of the zipper, they thought it was that one detail that made the whole garment more expensive.
I had sewn the majority of these pieces together, including a tragic moment when I reversed the corset direction and had to seam rip it all back out. But for the facing, I asked Paul to install it, given my previous experience failing at it with the dress.
I finished the arm holes and leg cuffs with a simple hem, and the super high collar I specifically asked for came off both a little too Count Dracula when it was popped up, and a little 70s when folded down. I ended up folding it over and tacking it to itself so it popped up still, but didn’t flare.
Over-all, this is one of my favorite creations, and I hope to make more of them.
This is part of a series called “How I Raved It” — Showing my process for making nightlife and other glitsy apparel pieces, and some nightlife adventures.
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