This Week in the Mercury
Tuesday, September 30, 2008
Fashion / News Portland Garment Factory
Posted by Marjorie Skinner on Tue, Sep 30, 2008 at 11:00 AM
For years there's been a dearth of production options for fashion designers in Portland. In a city that places so much emphasis on its local artisans, it's been difficult for Portland designers to keep their operations within the city limits up to certain point in their careers. Hey, it's great if stores want to sell your designs, but it's another story when you're faced with having to produce a huge run of garments on your own, often within very limited lengths of time. Certainly Portland designers have enlisted others to help as independent contractors, although this can be tricky and it can be hard to find people whose quality of work you trust. The Sofada team recently began offering production work to local designers, under the name Alice, Inc., but this week marks the opening of the first production house solely serving designers throughout the region. The Portland Garment Factory is the brainchild of founder Britt Howard, who got the idea by seeing how hampered many Portland designers were by this void, and decided to fill it. She and her team are already generating interest among locals like Kate Towers and Moth Love, and if you're a designer in town looking to preserve the locality of your designs (not to mention foregoing the cost of shipping things back and forth from New York, Canada, China, etc) you'll want to grab a peek at this week's two-pronged grand opening celebration: Thursday Oct 2 7-10 pm & Fri Oct 3 5-8 pm, stop by the factory space at 2324 SE Belmont for wine, snacks, and socializing, plus find out about pricing and range of services, or just give Britt a big high five for bolstering the local economy in this essential way.
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