but for you and me it's hard to see her glory in the sun

Sometimes, the simplest ideas lie right under our noses--or are found much closer to home than we might suspect.

(As always, click for larger images if you cannot properly make out details in the thumbnails.)

In an essay titled Paupers with good posture, Gibbous Fashions states:

gibbous is a miniature fashion house of hearts & hands collecting bits and pieces of discarded history. we hunt decrepit victorian clothes & stained silk slips. we harvest the lost trinkets of the city. buttons, coins, keys..we probably even have something of yours.

(Photos by Selene. Model: Kevin. The Neopolitan Dandy Vest retails for $175.00.)

I am in love with their intricate detailing, and the rescue work they're trying to do. They state the only new materials they use are the threads, and even some of those they salvage, from other garments, and use to sew together new ones.

our garments are made one by one, without patterns, in a method similar to putting a puzzle together. a myriad of different materials & histories are forged together in a sea of stitches. each piece is one of a kind, sculpted to the body, and adorned with various tatters and flourishes. flowers & buttons. chains & railroad parts.

(Photos by Peter Hinton. Model: Selene. The Thanksy skirt has been sold.)

It's piecework, it's puzzle work, delicate and hardy, charming and dizzying to the eye. And there is such an amazement of vintage clothing out there; if it doesn't fit, if it's stained, if it's ripped, if it's tattered and seen far better days...why not find new uses for it? Unless the fabric's completely reduced to shreds and threads, and even then--make paper!

gibbous is home to four designers. each has a slightly different style but all work together on a foundation of timeless quality & artistic integrity. we are committed to taking things that already exist; from last year's discards to 1800s, and making them live again in better form & f unction. there are hundreds of people designing new styles with new materials, but with the current cast-off culture, this leaves a mountain range of abandoned clothing behind. we venture into these mountains.

modern culture has lost all scent of a soul. mass production & the disposability of fashion & style have ripped away the purity of clothing. sweatshop labor infuses garments with the stench of slavery. we are fighting against this epidemic with needles & thread.

(Photos unknown, but copyright to gibbous fashions. Model: unknown. The Oliver Oaks armwarmers have been sold.)

Create nothing prefabricated. Take piecemeal from the past. Honor every stitch. Lace belongs to everyone. And oh, what they use, when they use it...Buttons. Ribbons. Beads. Bows. Lacework and tatting. Chains. Pins. Nails. Silkscreened vintage prints. Blockprinted words on vintage fabric. Dots. Dashes. Quilting, fabric repoussé work, if that makes sense, topstitching, blanket stitching, suture stitching--no work of hands is left alone.

we believe clothes can have souls. we believe clothes should really be worn, lovingly mended, kept a lifetime and passed down. they can be dear as an old friend or childhood home.

gibbous was born out of necessity. in a world ever growing more one size fits all, garments as individual as their wearer & distilling them with all the left behind beauty of the past, present and future.

(Photos unknown, but copyright to gibbous fashions. Model: Peter. The Horsenail coat has been sold, and it sold for $950.00.)

This one still makes me reel. How long did that coat take to finish? The interlocking black-on-black-on-black, thread and silk and satin, seamed and wired and hemmed...tuck nails here, fix buttons there, the crazy quilt as couture.

from the freebox to the couture house.

And simplicity itself--some thread, some embellishments, and anything can look better. All it takes is time and care.

And yes, they will do custom work. Contact them if you're interested.