“I was at Linda’s (The Frame Shop in Delaware, OH) and we were set up for the Arts Festival last year,” she says. “A woman came into the shop, took several of my dresses into the changing room. She tried on one, put that aside, then another, put that one aside. But when she tried that third dress on, she ran right through the store and out into the street and twirled around for her companions. When I make something for myself, THAT is how I want to feel about it!
The same thing happened when she took samples down to Go Figure in the Short North area of High Street. “Sherry tried on a few of them, then found a dress she loved. She refused to take it off; she wanted to wear it right then,” she says.
Perakis Wallace designs clothing exclusively for the generously proportioned woman. “For the ‘real sized’ woman,” she says. Her Red Panty Designs are delightful examples of “up-cycling” – doing “recycling” one better by creating new garments using fabric and embellishments from several others. She says the impetus for creating her clothing line was a case of simply “being selfish.”
“I wanted clothing that was unique, comfortable, fancy, fun or flirty. I just couldn’t find gorgeous clothing ‘off the rack’ that fit me well. There were no real options for women in sizes over 14.”
She does the unthinkable: takes scissors to dresses and skirts from well-known labels and reassembles them into something unique. “It was kind of scary at first,” she admits. “I had to ask myself: ‘do I really want to do this?’” But after that first cut, she never looked back. “I go to Goodwill all the time; I am always looking for something to cut up.”
She is always on the lookout for interesting details and design elements: a row of interesting buttons, a clever pocket, fabric that feels good between her fingers.
She is particularly fond of linen, in spite of its tendency to wrinkle. “I love the wrinkles!” she says; “you have to learn to embrace the wrinkles!” And everything gets thrown into the washing machine. “There is no reason to dry clean linen,” she says. “Dry cleaning only makes linen fibers brittle. In Egypt, they washed linen in urine so it would stand up to the dyes. I think it can take a little washing.” She loves linen in particular, she says, because of the way it drapes on the body.
“I love to sit in front of the T.V. with a stack of clothes and my big scissors,” she says. “I cut out zippers, buttons, hook and eyes, waist bands and put them all in the appropriate jars. I ‘fussy cut’ everything and prepping takes the longest. I want those details to fall in a particular place; a button line to fall in a certain place, for instance.”
Pinning and stitching can take several hours. “I want it to look the way I have planned it in my head. I am not doing ‘patchwork.’ A lot of times you will see the ‘nothing matches’ idea but it is too much – too many prints. You will see a lot of solids paired with prints in my garments; no more than two patterns in a garment.
“The piece should be unique and special – but not like clown pants; nothing garish. You should look at someone wearing my designs and think: ‘there is an attractive woman who looks happy and really likes what she is wearing.
“I want the whole piece to work and not be just about this detail or that, e.g. mismatched buttons. And women can add their own embellishments, like a beautiful piece of jewelry.”
Perakis Wallace came from a family where the women always sewed. “I remember going to my grandmother’s house in Pennsylvania,” she says. “She would pull out these huge bags filled with pin cushions she had made out of scraps. I would only be allowed to have one or two – but I wanted 20!” Her grandmother embellished the pincushions with embroidery, making them miniature works of art.
“My mother made her own wedding dress, which she later recycled into an Easter dress for me.” In the early ‘70s Perakis Wallace inherited her grandmother’s 1940s Phaff sewing machine when her mother got a new one. “It had a gorgeous white art deco cabinet,” she says. She got to work immediately making tops and clothes for herself.
She attended Otterbein College, majoring in vocal music. She also chose to minor in costume design and became the costume shop assistant.
“It came from a love of fancy dress,” she says. “We need an excuse to {dress up}more than once a year at Halloween! My daughter, who is 20, does not sew – but she really enjoys fancy dress. There is a kind of joy and playfulness {with fancy dress} and I never want to lose that.” Whenever she – and later, her daughter - was in a play, Perakis Wallace made their costumes. “They were always the best in the show,” she laughs.
After graduation, Perakis Wallace found she wanted “something else” other than a career in vocal performing – although she still performs. “I have sung in about a thousand weddings and funerals,” she says, “and with the jazz group, Honk, Wail and Moan.”
She went back to school at Ohio Wesleyan University to pursue a BFA, focusing on sculpture. She worked with metals, often combining it with fiber in jewelry pieces she designed. She currently works as the curator of the Ross Museum of Art on the OWU campus in Delaware.
It was during her tenure at Ross that the name for her clothing line emerged. “I was co-curating a show at the museum and as often happens, friction arose with some co-workers. At some point, in great indignation, I said: ‘I don’t have to take this! I am wearing my red panties!’”
Red panties showed up repeatedly as a design motif in later art quilts that Perakis Wallace made. Wooster quiltmaker Susan Shie identified them as a “personal icon.”
“Red panties ARE my icon,” she says, “because strong, confident women wear red panties! And the funny thing about it is a lot of women come up to me and share their own ‘red panty stories.’”
Red Panty Designs can be found at the Etsy shop quilt7metal http://redpantycrafts.blogspot.com; at the Frame Shop on N. Sandusky Street in Delaware OH, and at Go Figure at 988 N. High Street in the Short North. Contact Tammy directly at cowmingo2@hotmail.com
By Pam Spence, fashion writer
Contact Pam Spence at pammy.spence@gmail.com
