What It’s Like Designing Your Own Line. Lara Bly, Designer and Illustrator Explains to PinkyShears.com. Part 2

Her experience working for others as well as starting her own line makes Lara Bly a great resource for beginning designers. Beginning to work on her own line, she remembers, called on skills she hadn’t used in a while. “It was a big change after having patternmakers and machinists working for me at Sacrosanct. It took a while to remember what I knew about sewing. I was rusty, but it came back quickly. It took me a while to transition away from Sacrosanct’s way of doing things,” she remembers. “I would call them up, and ask ‘could you get me in touch with those people who did the beading?’ or try to track down my old favorite machinist. It was like I was teaching myself all over again to do patterns.”She remembers it took her a while to trust her design instinct as well. “I didn’t know who I was anymore as a designer, because I had gotten so used to designing for other people for so long. I didn’t like the first few pieces I was doing. They weren’t bad sewing, it was just that I didn’t like them.But, in drawing and launching her own line, Lara Bly reawakened the instincts and eye for color that inspired her to pursue her career in fashion. “I remember I did one dress, and I thought ‘God, I love this dress. It’s so beautiful, and so me.’ After that, other dresses and designs, just followed naturally.”Lara says she is thriving in the artistic community at the Banana Factory, a studio space run by Arts Quest. “I have a place to show my work and an audience because we have First Fridays so you open your studio up. So, you get people coming in on a regular basis looking at your clothes, looking at other people’s work. The artists and photographers and I are like one big family, helping each other. I’m the only fashion designer there, practically one of the only fashion designers in Lehigh Valley.”She loves the search for the right fabrics and colors. “A lot of the time, I know what I want, what I’m planning when I see it.” Being able to work for herself gives her the freedom, she says, to “sit down and sketch, and see what comes,” and then find fabric to realize that vision.She prefers not to outsource design and manufacture at all, unless she’s crunched for time. “As long as I have time to do it, I do everything myself, I design it, make patterns and sew it. Having some skill as a patternmaker or a machinist, not just a designer, a great way to save money, if you want to start your own business. If you’re doing samples yourself, and something goes wrong, you don’t have to pay for mistakes, the same way. It’s part of your own learning.”Read more of her in depth interview at PinkyShears.com