www.ninasands.com

I AM AN ARTIST.

It took most of my lifetime to confidently state this simple fact.

I believe in beauty as the foundation of my life’s work. I couldn’t escape it, for it is the very substance my cells thrive on. Life would be unlivable without beauty. I simply must create, in many natural media, whether they be murals on walls or illustrations in books, portraits on canvas or Gaia in wood. I live and breath the array of delicious emotions that comes along for the ride in my every stitch of the needle and stroke of the brush.

I am most experience at, and best known for my intimate relationship with fabrics and couture fashions. Here, in the forefront of my website, I’m going to talk about the style I’ve developed, refined, almost perfected: the antique heirloom lace gown.

The most beautiful garments I design require that everything be as original as possible. Those antique textiles from Normandy always held my eye captive, so I use their diverse patterns, and attempt to copy their eclectic placements. The only way I can convey the concept to you of this Normandy style would be to call it a crazy quilt of fine valleceines laces and fabulous embroideries, but each with it’s own unique signature style, both by region and individual creator. Woven throughout all this fluff was a fine cotton batiste hand, light as air, delicate and soft. So soft….

All in ivory white, of course.

So that’s where I started from. Lace. But a wondrous thing happened in the very first design I attempted; the piecing and placement looked nothing like my classic inspiration. The more I sewed and pinned and stiched and pieced and placed, what appeared was something more and more my own creation. Something beautiful. Something I’d never seen before in all my studies.

And it was good. Really good!

Collage is the term that best describes the technique I developed those many years ago. All my skills, training, and natural gifts were put to great use. Form, balance, and function all had to come and play as you take something flat and square and ask it to form to supple curves and limbs. Don’t forget – for Couture to qualify as Art, it must be both graceful and comfortable, as well.

I came to call my dressmaking “sculpture”.
Built Opulent Creations with eclectic couture.
Today I could call this modern-retro style….

eco-couture.

I have been a GREEN rebel all my life. My mission, my way of being, is to rescue these beautiful things and give them new life. Not “historic recreations”. RECYCLING! I retrieve, restore, reinvent and, finally, resurrect antique laces. I give to them a bit of my breath, most of my energy, all of my love, and they are reborn as radical new eternal classics!

ART-TO-WEAR
For YOU to wear the most beautiful lace, the most precious lace, most often your most meaningful choice is that longlost hand-me-down lace which has been in your own family for generations. Grannie’s veil. Auntie’s train. Mom’s legacy. THAT is the next lace I want to rescue – revive – revitalize – for YOU!

If you would like to learn more about antique lace, where to find it, and how I can craft your own family legacy pieces into wearable Art, click here.