herself Clothing
“My mother was a sewer and she used to always bring me to fabric stores. I can still picture myself going through the rolls of cloth and just looking and loving things,” said Heather Stilin, owner and fashion designer of herself clothing, “I learned to sew at a young age and sewing requires a lot of patience. My mother always finished my projects but I kept doing it into adulthood. When I was probably in my mid-30s, I realized that I really wanted to make things that I was picturing in my head that weren't available on a pattern.”
Heather currently crafts her beautiful pieces in South Portland but before starting her business and starting her family here in Maine she lived in Northern California. She attended a pattern-making school in San Francisco and learned how to make her own patterns. She learned how to bring her ideas to life.
Photos by: Elle Darcy
Heather grew up in northern Wisconsin in a very small town. She went to school for journalism, at the University of Wisconsin Madison. She had a focus on photojournalism at the time. She did a lot of photography, worked with other artists and commercial photographers. Then she decided to become a film archivist.
“It is a librarian, but it's for films. It's a very specialized training and that was why I was in California. So I moved there for a job at the University of California, Berkeley, they had a Film Archive there. Fashion was just one of those underlying things that I always loved. I always loved looking at clothes, I loved antiques, and I loved vintage clothes. So my mother used to also take me to antique markets. A lot of times when I was in high school if we had a big dance or something I would wear a vintage dress or something. I loved the craft. I loved the fabrics. I loved the details, you know, but I always felt it was kind of frivolous…I need to do something more serious,” said Heather.
Photo by: Elle Darcy
Heather then moved to Maine, because she had family there and had her two boys. She raised them and didn't work during that period of time. Then as soon as she was seeing the light at the end of the tunnel to get back into work she decided she wanted to give fashion a try. “When I started was when my son was in his last year of preschool. I started exploring the idea, like coming up with some patterns on my own, since I knew how to make them and thinking of what I was going to do. I started reaching out to SCORE, which are a group of mentors, and I found a woman who used to work for Macy's. She became my mentor and she helped me along with the process. I looked online a lot, obviously, there's a lot of resources for this, and they both helped me answer the question, what was I going to do to launch?” said Heather.
Photo by: Elle Darcy
Heather’s craft is geared towards pulling together an outfit that is comfortable, neutral in color so it can be worn any time of the year, and brings the person who’s wearing its inner beauty to life. Measurements are very important when it comes to pattern making. She has her customers measure their bust, waist, hips, thigh. To make sure the piece fits comfortably and provides them with a style they’ll never want to part with.
“I start with the fabric. That is a big difference between newer clothes and vintage clothes. The reason vintage clothes survive is because of the quality of construction and fabric. To me, that's a really important part of my mission. I'm not going to make anything out of a fabric that I feel is flimsy and is not going to last. So I start with fabric and then construction is really important too. In the U.S. we're rebuilding our garment business, it disappeared in the 90s. There's a lot of skills that disappeared with that and so it's a matter of finding the people that have the skills to do that high-quality sewing because a lot of people I think have gotten in this mindset like that clothes made in the USA aren’t good quality. If you look at the construction on a garment from Target, like the stitches, they will be perfectly straight and there won't be any mistakes. It's usually the fabric quality that's not good. So there's a ton of skill in all those countries where they're making those clothes and we need to regain that skill and there are a lot of people that are doing it,” said Heather.
Heather’s herself clothing is slow fashion at its best and she honored to be in the great state of Maine growing her brand. She even opened her own studio in South Portland right next to the popular Rosemont Bakery.
“The thing about Maine is that one, it's a supportive community and an easier place to live. The pressures are not there. If I was in a big city, I would have never started this brand. When I was living in California and living in a big city or if I had moved to New York City it wouldn’t have worked because you just have to work so hard to get by. Whereas here you have a lot more freedom to experiment and try things. It really is because of Maine that I'm able to try it.
To learn more about Heather and her story behind herself clothing listen to the podcast episode located above.