|
Jan Kaufman of By Lisa A. Lawrence
In August, 2003, I got an email from Jan Kaufman, asking me if I would add her website, www.jancarmen.com, to my Favorite Links page. I took a quick look at her website and wrote her the following email:
Jan was thrilled at the idea. So I went a step further and declared that she was my "FIND," and I forbade her to participate on the doll boards or show her work until "HER" issue came out. To this Jan replied, "OK, I’m in! I can’t really blab to anyone in the doll world because I don’t know anyone! I truly am the 'new kid on the block.' I am truly impressed and just amazed and beside myself that you’ve paid any attention to me at all! I better shut up before you change your mind." Next thing I know, Jan has posted one of her outfits on Prego! She actually writes to me to ask what I think of the gown!
Here’s what I think:
Jan, realizing her mistake, changes the subject to my November issue of HM and tries to schmooze me:
Born as Jan Carmen Pichinelli in St. Louis, Missouri, Jan is one half Italian; the other half is a mixture of Irish, German and American Indian. As Jan tells it (and be careful what you ask her, because she elaborates at length!), "My dad’s mother and father were immigrants from Northern Italy near Milan. Mom said her grandfather was from Dublin, Ireland and he had married an Indian Princess after he immigrated to America. Her mother was of German Dutch descent and came to Missouri by covered wagon from Kentucky. I remember my grandmother telling me about the covered wagon days. I wish I would have paid better attention now that I am older. If she were living today, she would be 123 years old!"
"I am the youngest of three girls," Jan continues. "Mom and Dad were both 40 when I was born, so I was quite an unplanned surprise. The age differences between me and my sisters are about 4-1/2 years respectively. Dad was an Army veteran and postal clerk, and Mom was a stay-at-home mom. Dad was crafty and a great cook, and enjoyed playing the piano – he was always an honest man and exercised integrity and worked hard. Mom is artistic and has drawings and sketches of the most fantastic 'glamour girls'' she drew -- just their heads mostly, but she could produce them in seconds! Today my sister enlarges them on the scanner and Mom colors them. Mom also was a talented singer in her day, not to mention a beautiful woman! She had met my dad at the dance halls during the war when he was based in Scottfield, Illinois. Once in a while she would get a chance to sing with the Big Bands. Mom was a close match to Scarlett O’Hara from Gone With the Wind. Daddy looked a little like Rhett Butler. He always had a mustache. Someday I would like to commission a repaint artist to paint a doll to match a picture of my mother when she was young. Imagine if I could commission one to make a “Matt O’Neill” look like my dad! Hmm, the wheels are spinning. . . . Mom just turned 89. We lost Dad on March 1st, 1997."
Jan goes on, "In my early years I played house with my dolls, toy iron and dishes. I had a club house and a tree house that my dad built for me. I was always somewhat of a tomboy; I liked to play in the dirt with trucks and dig for ants. But I also loved girly things too. I had gotten a Patti Playpal® for Christmas one year when I was five or six. I just loved that doll and I still have her. Sometime after age seven I progressed to fashion dolls, with my first fashion love being a 24” doll named Loveable Louise®, made by Deluxe Toy Company (later known as Deluxe Reading). I remember asking Santa for a bride doll that year and I got two! One was a plastic 20” bride doll with reddish color hair in a factory-made dress. The other was Louise. Mom had made her a sleeveless bride dress of white satin covered with rows of netting. It was much prettier than what the 20” doll wore. Louise came with her factory rose-pink, satin party dress and contrasting red violet hat with a single light-pink rose and matching high-heeled shoes. Mom even made her a few additional outfits. I played with her all the time. I loved that doll, too. Sometime around the age of ten I received my first Barbie® doll. I would try my hand at sewing my own clothing, at first on my little black toy Singer® sewing machine. Later, I graduated to my mother’s sewing machine. Somewhere between there and adolescence, the Barbies and all the rest of my dolls were put on the back shelf. It was time to move on to nylons, heels, makeup and boys!"
Jan attended a Catholic grade school, followed by a public high school. In high school, she excelled in art and loved doing impressionist paintings, seascapes with black silhouettes, and sunsets. As she states, "I could pretty well duplicate with the paint brush what was seen in a photograph or magazine. Oils and acrylics were my medium." But after two years of high school, she dropped out and got married; as Jan notes, "I married my husband at the young age of 16, on September 11, 1970." (Well, she SAID she gave up dolls to move on to "nylons, heels, makeup and boys!") "We always celebrate our anniversary by taking vacation time then. He’s a great guy, and I love him a lot. We have three children, two boys and a girl. Our eldest son is married and a police officer, and we a have a 20-month-old granddaughter and a newborn grandson! Our younger son lives away from home and is quite busy with his job. He's also a bass player in a band. Our youngest child, Jackie, is living at home with us. She is a registered dietitian. I have a wonderful family, though they don't really understand the doll thing!
Jan completed her high-school equivalency exam at age twenty. She enrolled in some college courses at age thirty-six, placing into Honors English and earning a 4.0 grade point average. She was considering becoming a teacher. But her life took a shift and she was unable to continue toward a degree. Jan worked for seven years as a grocery-store cashier. Then, she began driving a school bus on a standby basis teaching commercial bus driving to “new hires” two days a week, and driving students the remainder of the week. Now, Jan is a "parts specialist" in after-market parts for customers who purchase her employer's equipment, which consists of, among other things, high speed conveyors, robotics, and sortation devices. When the customers' equipment breaks down, they call Jan to have her troubleshoot the problem. She will review the AutoCad schematics of the equipment and figure out which part of the machine needs to be replaced, overnighting the part to the customer. While working her way up to this position, Jan started off building conveyor equipment. She remembers, "I had my own tool box and steel-toed shoes. I learned how to drive a fork lift, load a tractor trailer, weld, cut lumber, use a nail gun, cut steel, drill steel, read drawings, and assemble with no instructions!"
She finds her current customer service job to be cleaner! "It’s a lot easier than the grease under the fingernails," she notes, "and the rips in the clothing, and the bruises on the body -- but, boy, is it mentally taxing! I’m never not busy and never caught up!" "Quaterly," she continues, "I have to take on the 'after hours' hot line, which could mean I’m having a relaxing evening at home and then the pager goes off. It's Pepsi. They have a production line down and I have to air freight them a part. Customers freak when they have a line down. I never knew it, but they all run just about 24/7. A line down means a loss in production." "I have a lot of fun, though, and I work with a great group of people. None of them are into dolls! Imagine that! They do share my enthusiasm and they look at the pictures I show them. Some of the men give me suggestions of the next “outfit” I should design. Wolves! They like those sexy outfits Sydney wears."
Jan's first doll purchase as an adult collector was in 2002. "It was Robert Tonner's Sheer Glamour Sydney®, right after she hit eBay®," Jan notes. "I thought she was so gorgeous that I searched the whole United States over to see if I could buy her. She was all sold out, but I was lucky enough to find two more, a nude one and a complete one." When asked about her current collection, Jan replies, "I have two Gene® dolls, Red Venus and Sparkling Seduction. I have a Tonner Ann Estelle®, an Ann Estelle OOAK, a Gracie®, and a Georgia®. I had a Sophie®, but I sold her because she was so mint in the box! Darn, I wish I still had her! I also have one brunette Tiny Kitty® and one Miss Teen America®. The majority of my dolls are Sydney Chase® and Tyler Wentworth®. I have two Esmés® and three Mei Li’s®. In all, I have twenty-six Tonner Fashion dolls standing around out of their boxes, trying on my creations and modeling. I have about ten or twelve other dolls or duplicates minty safe in their boxes. Every time a new issue comes out, I think I have to have her -- or two of each! Yes, I want the new Matt too. I think I’ll take the dark- haired stud!"
"I also own several vintage dolls of the fashion type," Jan adds. "I have at least twenty 24-inch Deluxe Reading® type dolls, a couple of thirty-six inch types and a few nineteen-inch dolls. (They fill the entire top shelf of my double closet!) I have some vintage Barbies®, a curio cabinet full, mostly bubble cuts in their original fashions. I do have one OOAK Barbie too. No modern Barbies. I’ve thought of buying a Silkstone® – I’ve never seen one in person or felt one, but I would like to sometime. Now that I think about it, I even have some Jakks Pacific® dolls tucked away somewhere!" "My very first OOAK design was for my little 'Topsy®' doll," Jan recalls. "She stands under five inches and the dress I made her was all done by hand. That was about three years ago. Little did I know that would lead to what I’m doing now!
Topsy I started on my fashion doll creations, intending to sell them, in May 2003. I had a strategy in mind, which was to acquire a trademark, and have that in place before I started designing and selling. I had applied for one as GG FASHIONS. The GG was meant to be an acronym for “Glamorous Gown” but it was denied, because it conflicted with an existing trademark and that would have been an infringement. That was a let-down for me, but I really should have explored my choices thoroughly, prior to applying. The other step was to procure the fabrics that I would use in my creations, and I’ve done plenty of that!" Jan's entrance into the world of fashion doll designs was largely influenced by Robert Tonner® and vintage Mattel®. "I love the beautiful dolls that Robert Tonner creates. I'm also intrigued by the vintage Barbie fashions that I began collecting. Their details were so perfect and minute! Tiny zippers, tiny buttons, tiny pockets! They were made by Japanese housewives in Japan! I thought it would be wonderful if I could replicate that and bring that standard back to modern collectors. I am for retro! By that I mean quality. Compare a product that was designed 40 years ago to something that is made today. Not dolls necessarily: take an automobile, for example! Everyone cuts costs to produce a product, and in doing so I feel quality is lost. It’s the same way with cooking. Do you make from a mix to save time, or do you make it from scratch because it will taste better? I’m of the 'from scratch' persona. That’s important to me."
Jan's designs are also inspired by vintage designers, old movies, old magazines, modern magazines including Town and Country and Vogue, movie stars, and, of course, the Oscars. "Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, and Rita Hayworth inspire me," Jan explains. "They are all classy ladies and dressers. I want to emulate that in my designs. Halle Berry sure wears the designer gowns well and always looks good." "My love of dolls has been forever," Jan continues. "For a while it lay dormant, until I discovered eBay®. I love buying dolls that recapture my long-lost childhood. I kept buying and buying and buying, like your little 'Kat'. I had to have an additional income to supplement my habit!" While Jan did have a bit of art instruction during high school, she is a self-taught seamstress. Her grandmother, however, did teach her how to knit, crochet, and make patchwork quilts. In 1977, while pregnant with her last child, Jan bought a Necchi® sewing machine and used patterns to make her own maternity clothes. Later, she made dresses for her daughter and eventually progressed to tailoring a coat and jeans. "At that time I was working part time and whenever there was a holiday or event to dress up for, I always made a new outfit for myself. I began sewing and making alterations for people that saw my work and I did fairly well with it. Then life happened again, and all of the sewing just about dropped off until my doll collecting started up a few years ago."
Life happened? Jan was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992. Three years later Jan's daughter, Jackie, then 16, was in a horrible car accident that left her a paraplegic. Jan explains, "I noted a few times in my interview questionnaire, 'then life happened.' There's a saying that goes, 'Life is what happens when you're making other plans.' There sure is a lot of truth to that. Having 'my baby' paralyzed was the most hurtful thing I've ever experienced. She is a most phenomenal person! She went to England a few years ago. She rock climbs, water skis, and snow skis! There isn't anything she can't do. Life has dealt her lemons. She has made the best-tasting batch of lemonade I've ever tasted or seen." Jan's designs always start with the fabric. "It’s an on-going treasure hunt," she notes. "I fall in love with a beautiful piece of fabric and then I allow it to take control of me to create a beautiful design. Sometimes the smallest, most unique piece of fabric can be the theme or catalyst for my creation."
Jan's favorite part of the design process is formulating the design and watching it transform before her eyes. Her least favorite part is doing the lining. Asked if she would like to just do the designing and leave the sewing to someone else, Jan responds, "Yes, yes, yes, yes yes!!!!" From conception to finished product, the process can take anywhere from weeks to months. Having to work full-time and take care of her family cuts drastically into Jan's creative time. She's generally able to only fit in about twelve hours a week for her doll clothing designs. Sometimes Jan will draw a design before she makes it. She has taken photographs of her nude dolls in various poses and prints them out on paper so she can draw a design over the doll's silhouette. On occasion, she attempts to use the computer to 'paint' in the outfit, but finds it difficult using a mouse to draw. Mostly, Jan comes up with her designs by draping the fabric on the doll and seeing what works. "When I am in the brainstorming/creating phase," Jan states, "it helps me to wrap the fabric around the doll in a temporary design and shoot some pictures just so I can have a visual. It helps me tremendously to get things in perspective." While draping is a specific skill and talent, Jan learned this on her own. Thus, her methods may or may not be the same draping that is taught in fashion schools. Here are some examples of Jan's draping various fabrics to get ideas for styles:
"I’m a pack rat for fabric," Jan continues. "When I see something I like, I buy it immediately. I buy at fabric stores and online. I've also selected and had fabrics dyed to my specifications, working with an online retailer in Thailand. I ended up paying an import tax, but it was well worth it to have these gorgeous and unique fabrics! I took pride in knowing that they were made to my order! My sister, Linda, will assist me by finding me special treasures as she comes across them. The fabric for the black velvet gown with the rhinestones was acquired by her at a flea market. She thought I could make something beautiful from it. The piece was presented to her as a cut from an antique dress that we believe to be from the 1930’s or 1940’s era. My sister has a friend, Phyllis, who saves and gives things to me like swatches of lace or little beads and sequins. People know I like to sew and they sometimes bless me with something that they think I could use. I save it all. You never know when it may come in handy." Jan has a "design studio" in her house. She notes, though, "If we ever build again, I would like to have a room, a large one with big glass windows facing in every direction." Her hopes for the future are to be able to devote herself full-time to her designs and to become sought after for her workmanship and quality. While she doesn't aspire to have a commercial business, she would like to have enough work to keep her very busy.
Jan is one of the few clothing designers who writes story cards for her outfits. "[The story] evolves as the gown is being created," Jan says. "I may think of something while I am sewing or even before I cut the piece, and I jot it down. I keep a notebook handy! I even have a story started, associated with a piece of fabric that I have not even cut yet!" She also has special packaging in which she ships her creations: "The packaging is custom, and matches the design that was sold. An image of the fashion is imprinted on the wrapper. The tissue paper is 'lacy' and feminine." Until now, pursuant to my orders (except for the one mishap), Jan hasn't done any advertising. She's been trolling around the boards and can't wait to start participating! Now that this article is published, she'll probably be on Prego quite often as well as some of the Yahoo! Groups. (I know this 'cause she's been periodically whining to me about having to "wait.") Jan was given six months to create outfits for this interview and the cover. After two months, Jan started losing her nerve. While Jan's skills are wonderful, her heavy work schedule was preventing her from working on the outfits for HM. I gave her a pep talk. She assured me she was OK and would be finished in time. Another month went by. Jan was in hysterics. Various work, health, and family issues had taken all her time away from her designs. It was now January. I gave her a pep talk and told her, if necessary, we could delay the March 15th publication date. The closer we got to that date, the more things prevented me from meeting my self-imposed deadline. It's now Thursday, April 8th. I'm publishing just after midnight on Sunday, the 11th. Will Jan be ready? Will I?
While Jan's skills as a designer are unquestionable, her photography abilities were lacking. (Not unusual, since photography is an art and skill in itself) A week ago, Jan sent me preliminary pictures of several unfinished outfits! I took a quick look at them and sent her back suggestions on what each outfit needed in order to be completed. She was grateful for the suggestions. I also reminded her that she needed her photographs to be better.
A few days ago, Jan sent me some photographs. They were better, but still not good enough for publication. Jan's boss, being completely supportive of her doll venture, lent Jan his camera. The pictures got better. Then she had problems with the lighting. Having Julie's article ready for publication, I gave Jan the link, hoping that Julie's tips would help. They did . . . until Thursday the 8th, when Jan's camera cord broke. This time, instead of a pep talk, I lectured her. I told her that with two more days to go before publication, she needed to stop trying to do everything herself! I told her to send out a distress call to everyone she knew with any photography skills, and enlist their help to take the pictures as she completed the outfits. She relented. Like me, Jan wants to think she doesn't need anyone's help. Like me, she does! While I noted that it would be useful for her to learn to take better photographs, I suggested that NOW was not the time for practice. It was time to stop being stubborn and get help. We've got two days left and several of Jan's outfits are not completed and I only have about three photos from her which are good enough to print. Thankfully, Jan's boss gave her Friday off. I was up until 5 am this morning, attempting to write Jan's article. Being exhausted, I mostly watched my cat sleep and wished I could join her. It's now coming up on midnight. Jan's article isn't done. Things happen in my life, too, that cause me delays.
Friday morning, April 9th. Jan sends me an email. Her sister, Linda Roufa, has been a professional photographer of pro wrestlers since 1982. They send me ONE of her preliminary pictures. Finally, the quality is there! While Linda may think there's a world of difference between shooting pro wrestlers and shooting dolls, she hasn't seen Tyler and Sydney fight when a new outfit arrives in the mail. It's now 8:00 p.m. on Friday. I'm still trying to finish this article. I haven't gotten any new pictures sent to me or heard if Jan is finished yet with her outfits! In twenty-eight hours, this issue will be in print, photographs or no photographs! How embarrassing for Jan if there aren't any! How embarrassing for me if there's no cover for this issue! Maybe I'll repost on Prego for a new Editor-in-Chief again.
It's Saturday night, around 6:00 p.m. I finally get the email I'm waiting for from Jan.
It's 11:44 pm. Jan is still sending me pictures. 11:55 p.m. These just came in:
Jan tells me that this gown will have a matching stole and purse. She didn't finish. She also notes that she didn't finish two other gowns she's been working on. It's 11:58 p.m. I have pictures of the two that weren't finished. Can I post them in two minutes?
I don't have time to write the end of this interview because it's coming up on midnig.......
NOTE: Jan will be out of town Monday 4/12 to Thursday 4/15. The Cover Gown will be on eBay sometime on 4/11.
|
