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| Sheer Delights "I have embraced organza," announces Kenneth D. King in a mock-solemn voice laden with tongue-in-cheek humor. Speaking from his San Francisco, Calif. studio--which apparently is filled with clouds of organza at the moment--he describes his occupation as "couturier." Warming to the subject of what he's sewing, he says straightforwardly, "The new pieces I'm working on now, I'm sort of inventing as I go. They're turning into a hybrid between sewing, smocking and crocheting. It's forcing me to re-examine how clothing goes together." King's most recently completed project, a black organza evening wrap, offers a good example of his new mode. He consumed an amazing amount of filmy fabric in the process of manipulating the sheer material into a richly textured garment. "Thirty yards (27m)," he says triumphantly about the total textile tab. "It's a b-i-g cocoon coat. I mean, the pattern pieces measure 16'(5m) long. It's like nothing you've ever seen. It's very cool!" |
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"D" Is For Diva If, as he talks, you find yourself smiling, then you'll understand why King--he claims his middle initial "D" stands for "diva"--has so many adoring fans. He seems to combine workmanship with wit in an unusually winning way. Certainly, his expertise with needle and thread is impressive. Whether made according to his "old" or "new" mode, King's clothing is always masterfully designed and impeccably constructed. At the same time, it's both glamorous and very wearable. "I don't have much art training. I come from retail," he explains. "One of the things I'm most conscious of is that what I create is a garment first and it has to live in the world. My goal is to make clothes and accessories a woman of 30 can purchase and wear with pleasure until she's 80." Elegant embellishments such as freeform beading, tiered tassels, piping insertions filled with fine rattail cord and pockets tailored with contrast welts are among his trademarks. All these adornments are carefully integrated into the style lines of his fashion designs. " What I like to do is have an architectural detail of the garment support the embellishment--like a lapel, a pocket, a jacket corner or an edge. There's always some detail on the garment that the embellishment plays off of," he says. Deploring the common tendency to sprinkle glitz and glitter all over an item and call it wearable art, he prefers to call his pieces "art couture." Whatever name is given to his work, King is as engaging as he is accomplished; he communicates his sewing knowledge like an entertainer. He's a popular speaker at sewing conferences, as well as a sought-after teacher who travels frequently to guilds and independent fabric shops to share his "cool bag of tricks" and "son of cool bag of tricks" with eager students. His audience expanded to the national level when he appeared as a sewing expert on the former public television series, "Sewing Today." |
| Cause Célèbre Of all his roles, however, he's probably best known to the world at large as a haberdasher to celebrities. "The first piece I ever sold was bought by actress Cloris Leachman," he says. He recalls the thrill of learning that when his beaded vest was displayed at Maxfield's, an upscale Melrose Place boutique in Los Angeles, it sold immediately to the famous star. "I'll never forget it as long as I live. I was poor then," he says about the time in his mid-twenties, just after he'd quit his staff job as a department store window display person. He was determined to create original clothing and accessories full time and on his own. "It was right before Thanksgiving in 1987. I'd lost my apartment. I was living in my studio, sleeping on a broken-down sofa and listening to the mouse traps clicking like castanets all night," he says half-seriously. Fortunately, Leachman's purchase prompted Maxfield's to order more of King's vests, eventually leading to a profitable seven-year run. Geena Davis, Don Johnson, Laura Branigan, Stevie Nicks, Danielle Steele and Elton John are other notables who've purchased King's work through this retailer. Subsequently, John became one of King's best private customers and wears King's original creations in several music videos. "It's wonderful working for him. He understands that if you find a creative person whose work you like, you just give them a few parameters and let them go," says King about the famous musician. "He has a pretty good smattering of my pieces--hats, vests, dinner jackets and some jewelry." |
 Yards and yards of filmy black organza are transformed into exquisite one-of-a-kind garments at the hands of Kenneth King. |
| Charge! Before achieving this degree of recognition and financial success, King endured a period he calls "paying my dues." "I started my business on my VISA card, okay? Twenty-two per cent interest, okay?," he asks rhetorically. "I said to people, 'I'm going to be making hats and accessories, they're going to be packaged in black velvet boxes and they're going to sell for thousands of dollars.' A lot of people rolled their eyes and said, 'Who do you think you are?' I stuck to it, because I knew it was what I wanted to do. I think if you commit to something, the means--sometimes it's money, sometimes it's the connections, sometimes it's good luck, whatever--the means will be there." King believes launching his couture business on a shoestring helped to refine his style. By adding beads, piping and other embellishments to plain fabric, he found he could create a luxurious, sumptuous fashion impression without spending beyond his means for materials. "It's a way to make a lot more of something than it actually is," he says about his decorative treatments. "The challenge when you have limited resources is to be a lot more creative. After all, it's like falling off a log to make a jacket out of $200-per-yard fabric. You just sew the darn thing up and it looks terrific." Although he's associated with detailed handwork, he happily uses the serger and the sewing machine for many special effects. "I have to use time wisely to make the work profitable," he says. "You spend the time where it's important. Otherwise, you can get crippled in the details and never get anything finished." |
| Born To Sew King began sewing the way many do, by making doll clothes. As a child growing up in Salina, Kan., he enjoyed dressing Barbies®. "This caused my parents great distress," he admits. "My mother wished I would lose interest in sewing, but I didn't. She got all sorts of grief about it from my relatives, especially after my father died." Upon graduating with a degree in fashion merchandising from Central State University in Edmond, Okla., he worked in window display, eventually moving to San Francisco. "It was really good training, actually," he says about the display work. "You don't have to have a deep knowledge of any one thing, but you do have to have a broad range of knowledge." Off duty, he took lessons in French patternmaking methods and art studies as he taught himself couture millinery techniques. For three years, he created hat and purse samples at home; some were exhibited in galleries and museum shows in the Bay area and some were sold to friends. Now he practices his craft in a place he claims is "the best studio of anyone I know." Describing the 1,600 square foot space he says, "Walk in and you see wood floors, skylights, 10' ceilings. The first room is my salon where I do consultations. Behind the salon is my office. It has my desk, my books and the sofa where I take my nap. It's 13'x18'--I don't need all this space, but I want it." The actual sewing area is around a corner and down the hall. It's a large room equipped with five Bernina sewing machines--a serger, two industrial machines, and two programmable household machines. There's a gravity-feed iron set up for pressing. King, who does virtually all his own cutting and sewing, keeps this working area particularly neat. "It has white walls and lots of cabinets so I can put everything away. When I finish a piece, I stop and I clean," he says emphatically, adding that his habit is to work on just one project at a time. He has recently hired a publicist and together they have created a three-year plan to enable his couture business to grow. "I'm known in certain circles, but now I have to get to the next level," he says, realizing that the price tags on his pieces--computed by his formula of cost (hours and materials) times three--suggest a rather selective market for his work. To cultivate his clientele, he now travels to conduct private trunk shows in the homes of potential customers. It's an effective way to place his pieces where they'll be appreciated. "What I didn't do so much in my last cycle, which I want to do now, is have more direct contact with my customers and do a lot more one-on-one work," he says. "The new direction in my work is going to help me do that." Given his talent, skills and personal flair, one assumes he sews his own wardrobe. "Oh no. I buy all my clothes at Goodwill. You can find some really cool stuff there," he says. "I have a look--black jeans, black T-shirt in summer or black turtleneck in winter, and good jackets. I can find all sorts of cool jackets at Goodwill for $5." Stating he doesn't have time to sew for himself because all his sewing time is dedicated to clients, he appreciates the irony of the situation. "Someone once said to me, 'there's going to come a time when you can't afford your own work'," he says. "I never understood what that meant until now." |
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