detail: Moth Love by Gretchen Jones. photo: Minh Tran
They were everywhere suddenly, dancing on sunbeams in the upper story, trembling with the brief, grave duty of their adulthood: to live for a day on sunlight and coitus. –Barbara Kingsolver, Prodigal Summer
This, from the novel Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver, is tacked on a board in Gretchen Jones’ studio, a little poem, really. You’d never guess the “they” in the quote refers to moths which many of us associate with porch lights and holes in wool sweaters.
“I used to be deathly afraid of moths, and now I’m in love with them,” Jones says, explaining why she’s named her new clothing line, Moth Love. “I’ve gone through a really big transformation myself in the last year,” she says. “I was thinking about how fleeting the lifespan of a moth is, how different chapters of my life feel that fleeting. The way that Kingsolver described the way the life of moth plays out, I connected with it. I felt like it was really romantic. They work so hard on creating this thing called life and then it’s over. And obviously that’s like fashion. So much time and energy and love put into this thing and it’s gone.” She finds the quote on the board and reads it aloud.
“It’s because of Anna, she gave me the book. I often feel I’m designing for her.”
Anna, is jewelry designer Anna Korte who has for a number of years done a great line of limited edition jewelry built with vintage components. Her pieces are fresh, witty, recombinations of vintage brass chain, bead, and finding, juxtaposing eras for a completely modern feel. And each piece is titled with what feels like a little poem. She too has taken a new direction in the special jewelry collection she’s done for Moth Love that will be available in Spring 08. The two designers play off each other, inspire each other, so it’s natural that they would do companion collections.
detail: Moth Love by Gretchen Jones. photo: Minh Tran
For Moth Love, Jones is doing subtle, unstructured shapes in organic shades (wheat, moss, rose) of wool suiting and gabardine with great details like a waterfall of a chiffon overdress, two reverse box pleats at the hem that give a skirt a slight bubble shape, leather trimmed pockets or braided straps, and somewhere on every garment, a tonal moth motif Jones embroiders, based on a Hopi drawing.
For Korte, adding a completely new material for her, vintage leather, has resulted in a line that, like Jones’ new work is more subtle, sophisticated, with details that make you lean in for a closer look: there is a tiny brass leaf attached to that thin band of white leather on one long necklace. “I had always been attracted to the idea of leather in jewelry making,” Korte says. “I had the idea to use the leather from vintage gloves! Their silky, thin and raw texture was very appealing.” The leather finds its way into her necklaces in small tassel pendants, tiny knots inserted into a long brass chain, and most brilliantly as a ruched spacer (it’s the finger of a glove) between two brass beads.
detail: Moth Love by Gretchen Jones. jewelry: Anna Korte. photo: Minh Tran
When Jones moved to Portland a year and half ago from Colorado specifically to be a part of the Portland fashion community, she jumped in with both feet. She worked at The English Dept., modeled, apprenticed with designer Elizabeth Dye, and launched an eponymous line that featured pinafores and ruffles. Moth Love is a very different animal. “I feel like I’ve grown so much. This looks like work by a completely different person. (Of course, I still have an infinite amount of growing to do.) I had to ask myself, ‘What am I going to want to continually create? How much do I want to play off trends? Is it what I want to wear?’”
What results is a collection of one-of-a-kind or limited edition pieces that answers an emphatic yes to all of those questions, a collection that is cohesive and clear in intention. What’s more, it’s a collection that any number of women will be able to embrace and be able to style individually. For example, Jones deliberately leaves a leather belt unattached so that it can be worn at high or low on the waist. And don’t miss her feathered headbands.
Moth Love and Anna Korte’s special Spring 08 collection will be introduced November 17 at 7 PM at Amalee (909 N Beech). And the presentation will be as subtle as the embroidered moth on the hem of the wheat-colored dress: Jones plans no runway show, but a cocktail party at which the models (styled after an individual species of moth) will circulate among the guests. The collections will be available at Seaplane. And if you miss Saturday’s soiree, tune in next week for our next Point of View shot by Minh Tran (from which these detail photos were taken) for a look at the collection.
Anna Korte and Gretchen Jones in Anna Korte jewelry and Moth Love by Gretchen Jones. photo: Minh Tran
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