Re fabrics, etc.

lavendar · ‎03-10-2010

Louis made it very clear that some women do not/ can not wear poly in the summer heat. I listened carefully because I am one of them. He said some can only wear cotton, some nothing! I have an illness called Sjogren's syndrome and I'm heat intolerant. Probably because I don't sweat. A big advantage when it comes to dry cleaning, but that's about it.

I buy some of Louis' poly blends and have been thrilled with them. I just don't buy them to wear in the summer heat. I've collected cotton dresses and skirts over the years (they're very hard to find) and that's all I wear. Not even pants or crops unless I have to.

Louis is correct that major designers use poly. Thirty years ago my always impeccably dressed late aunt went to Manhattan to buy a dress for her son's wedding. It was a Nippon (remember him?) gorgeous pale peach colored dress. I assumed it was all natural fabrics.

HA! I borrowed it for a black tie affair. It was mainly poly. She got it wholesale for about five hundred dollars; I have no idea what it would have cost retail or how that would relate to today's dollar but it was one gorgeous, expensive dress.

It almost cost me a pay raise. The board member from the non profit I was working for was there. I had an interview the following week re a raise. I told her I could not live on the salary I was making. She saw me and made a comment on my dress. I quickly told her my aunt had sent it to me to wear. She laughed and said, "I'm glad you told me that; I tried it on myself. If you could afford that dress you could work for free."

I got the raise.

Maxine49 · ‎03-09-2010

Yes, I remember Alfred Nipon. I had an off the rack suit of his when he was doing ready to wear...it was navy weave with white lapels, as I recall, and Navy buttons with pearl centers and gold twist trim....we are going back over 30 years ago now to the late 1970's early 1980's.

He and his wife started out designing maternity clothes---my mother had some in the 50's. They sold that business, Ma Mere, and started designing dresses in the 1970's and went to prison for tax evasion in the 1980's. The company went bankrupt in the late 1980's ad then was sold to Leslie Fay---but the Nipon label is still produced. He is still living, born in 1927.

"More is more and less is a bore!" Iris Apfel

lavendar · ‎03-10-2010

Wow! I new he got into financial trouble and went to prison. I remember when they were all the rage and his wife was on Oprah. My aunt's dil sent me some of her better clothes when she died and there was a beautiful white wool Nipon coat. I wore it until it had to be cleaned; the only drycleaner that would guarantee it wouldn't turn yellow charged thirty five dollars. Also I find a long wool coat like that just too heavy.

Barbara in Virginia · ‎05-22-2010

I also bought a Nipon poly jersey dress back in the day. Got it at Saks on sale. There have always been different grades of ALL fibers, and even more so today with the great improvements in the synthetics.

I would hope/think that all of us here would want to be educated consumers!

lavendar · ‎03-10-2010

Barbara, very few of us have the education and background you do. I'm just shy of seventy and my late mother and aunt taught me what was important way back in the day. They didn't have an education in the synthetic fibers. But today is a whole new world for me. Last year a friend who lost a LOT of weight gave me a pair of black ponte knit pants, label still on. Two hundred bucks (she got them marked down.) I looked up the designer and she was under the Ellen Tracy umbrella before they dropped her. They were like no other ponte I've seen. I don't have any Linea in ponte so I couldn't compare.

Even feel can be deceiving: e.g. I CANNOT WEAR WOOL, even cashmere. Aunt and I were in Ann Taylor and I was trying on dresses. I made it very clear to the salespeople re wool. But I didn't realize they couldn't read French. Had just buttoned up a very soft feeling dress when I started going crazy and screamed, "Get me out of this dress!" My aunt ripped two buttons and we ran out of that store pronto. And I saw the French word for wool on that dress as I was frantically pulling it over my head.

mooshka · ‎10-02-2010

I got married in a Nipon dress. It was a soft blush color with beautiful lace on the top. The factory now houses the wonderful restaurant Osteria in Philadelphia.

Barbara in Virginia · ‎05-22-2010

On 3/4/2014 lavendar said:
Barbara, very few of us have the education and background you do. I'm just shy of seventy and my late mother and aunt taught me what was important way back in the day. They didn't have an education in the synthetic fibers. But today is a whole new world for me. Last year a friend who lost a LOT of weight gave me a pair of black ponte knit pants, label still on. Two hundred bucks (she got them marked down.) I looked up the designer and she was under the Ellen Tracy umbrella before they dropped her. They were like no other ponte I've seen. I don't have any Linea in ponte so I couldn't compare.

Even feel can be deceiving: e.g. I CANNOT WEAR WOOL, even cashmere. Aunt and I were in Ann Taylor and I was trying on dresses. I made it very clear to the salespeople re wool. But I didn't realize they couldn't read French. Had just buttoned up a very soft feeling dress when I started going crazy and screamed, "Get me out of this dress!" My aunt ripped two buttons and we ran out of that store pronto. And I saw the French word for wool on that dress as I was frantically pulling it over my head.

Jac Dell'Olio also can't wear wool and many cashmeres. But can wear the Linea Posh Knit! I wouldn't be surprised if Louis developed that textile as one that Jac can wear.

Sometimes -but not always- it isn't the fiber itself but impurities that have not been properly cleaned from the raw goods. (This is also true of down.) It is sometimes the dyes or finishes that are applied.

But whatever the irritation, of course if a fiber causes you discomfort, it is one to be avoided!

ninjasmom · ‎03-25-2011

I have a textile degree and have experience with all kinds of fabrics. While I agree that the new fabrics do a great job of appearing to be a natural fiber ,I still am not as comfortable in them as a true natural fiber.The woven polys do not bother me as much as the poly knits.

lavendar · ‎03-10-2010

The woven poly's are amazing! One of my favorite things of all time is a Linea topper with black embroidery that came in red, white and I think black. I got it on a LQ price. I literally can't walk a city block without a compliment. Mine is red.

Posh knit has silk; I imagine that's why Jac can wear it. I wouldn't risk it. I grew up in Buffalo, ten miles from the Canadian border. Every summer, my friends and I would drive over the Peace Bridge to Canada and buy cashmere sweaters for a pittance compared to the U.S. However, we'd have to wear them back, lie and say we hadn't bought anything so we wouldn't have to pay duty. My friends would pile them on, not fun in the summer heat. I could only buy one cardigan because I'd be wearing a long sleeve cotton blouse underneath. It was hard to find really good sweaters that weren't wool in those days. I had a lot of cardigans.