natalia ilyin

Living out here on the Island, we don't exactly stand on the whetted cutting edge of fashion, unless it's fleece-related. However, I have a secret weapon. (The key to Island life is the acquiring of secret weapons having to do with cultural change.) On the fashion front, which I quitted in about 1992 due to unforseen aging, I have my niece. She's 15. She knows. (more…)

Abi and I decided that we'd use a quote about Tobias from my book,
Chasing the Perfect. Proving that some designers are born, not made:

"When Tobias was nine years old, his family flew to England to spend
some time with his grandmother in Kent. In the morning, his mother came
downstairs to find the small Tobias sitting at the kitchen table, staring
at a tin of biscuits. The rest of the children were outside yelling and
climbing trees, and there sat Tobias, staring at a tin. (more…)

So the dishwasher broke in the morning and that meant the whole time I was working I knew I would come home to the pile-up. I spent much of the day in a long meeting, convincing a client that, in order to create a marketing plan, it might good to first create a brand story--you know-- something to market. After that my red blood cell count was down to nil. (more…)

So Pete Upstairs went in to have another part of his tongue removed but before he went he asked me to take care of his pet rats while he was gone. Since I live downstairs and we're friends, he was counting on me to do it.

Now. I am not what you would call an ardent lover of All Things Great and Small. As a matter of fact, I never would have even had a dog, had she not been a border collie, cut me out and herded me into doing it. Never had a guinea pig when young. Sneeze near cats. And of course, spending many years in Manhattan watching rats scurry around the subway tracks on 34th Street did not do much to endear rodents to me. (more…)

"I am as passionate about bacon as I am about modernism."

Thomas Goryeb, architect

Here on our island in the Puget Sound, winter skies stay pearl-grey from October to May. In order to fight "Rock fever," we work in bright light, and at home we knit, we sew, we quilt, we cook, we stare into light boxes and remember those good days in Antigua. To combat the grey-scale world, I often walk down to Esther's and poke around. Esther's is our small-- yet fabulous--fabric store, nothing like the big mall ones. It has real people working, and they're all smart and funny and have lived real lives. The current owner is part punk and part Holly Hobby. She went to FIT and then worked as a clothing designer in NY, but came back to the island after the Trade Center blew up. Now she owns the store.
Anyway I went down yesterday and ran smack into Denyse Schmidt's book, Denyse Schmidt Quilts, which shows you how to make thirty brightly-colored quilt and patchwork projects like the "Eye Will Revive" eye pillow and my favorite quilt, the "Drunk Love Two-tone," which reminds me of my misspent youth. (more…)

The other day I was sitting in a meeting with my brand analysis hat on, listening to Pam, my business partner, present a plan for brand alignment to a very bright client. I like listening to Pam’s presentations because her mind works so differently from mine. I always learn something. This time, though, my attention was distracted by a person sitting near me. The thinning, spikey hair with the lightened tips. The slim, rectangular glasses. The worked-out, aging body clothed in the latest techno-wear from REI, chosen to give a sense of health and youth where health and youth are ebbing. Behold: The Branding Hack. (more…)