Portland Fashion Week: Children’s Wear With Sister Fresh

Tonight marks the opening night of Portland Fashion Week and I am SO excited to be attending as a member of the PFW Style Collective. I can’t wait to see all the couture and ready-to-wear fashions for women, but you know what I’m even more excited about? Children’s wear. It’s no secret that I love kid’s fashion and that dressing my little ones is one of my favorite hobbies, so I’m really excited that there will be a couple of voices for kid’s wear at fashion week this year – namely designer Erin Keys of Sister Fresh.

 

I got to ask Erin a few questions about her inspiration and design process and I really enjoyed getting her perspective!

1. How did Sister Fresh come about?

Sister Fresh was started a few years ago when my daughter was about 5 years old. I had found my old sewing machine in storage and decided I would sew a dress for her for Easter. I had never sewn clothing before then, only pillow covers and some funky handbags about 10 years prior. I began sketching, cutting up patterns and sewing cute dresses for my daughter and then some of my friends started asking me,“how much?” That was when I started the Sister Fresh brand.

2. What drew you to designing children’s clothing?

I chose girls’ clothing solely due to my love of my daughter. She’s my only child and I absolutely adore her. Designing and sewing started as an expression of love and it’s evolved to a cause of embracing and preserving the innocence of young girls – creating dresses that allows girls to portray their age. I’m working on a tween line as well and the goal of my brand is to offer girls’ the fun and trendy designs within the framework of my demure esthetic. Our girls grow up all too fast and I want to be a part of something that embraces their youth and their innocence.

3. What inspires your designs?

‘What’s old is new again’ is my jam. I’m an old soul and have always been drawn to style, music, you-name-it, in 60s-70s eras. A lot of my designs originate first by a retro print fabric I’ve found. This might be backwards but then again, my degree is in creative writing. I believe not learning the rules of how to do something before you do it, allows you to bring your uniqueness to the table. I’m suited up (dressed up ), showing up and ready to show what Sister Fresh is about.

4. If you had to sum up your collection in one sentence what would you say?

Our new Sister Fresh Spring 2015 collection, “School of Frock,” is a fresh take on girls’ dresses with charming designs in nostalgically retro prints!

Here’s a little sneak peek at one of the dresses from Sister Fresh’s upcoming Spring 2015 line: “School of Frock’. It’ll be out in January andr I’m in love with the fun fabric print and the cut is so cute! AND…perfectly twirly, so it would definitely get the Fern stamp of approval.

Erin also makes the loveliest special occasion dresses. Fern will be wearing that Agnes Ribbon dress on the right when she attends the opening night show with me tonight and I can’t wait! Be sure to check my Instagram, because I’m sure I’ll be spamming the IG feed with cute toddler pictures.

Thanks Erin! We can’t wait to see the whole collection tonight!

You can see more Sister Fresh frocks here, and follow Erin on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter.

Love and pint-sized dresses,

Lauren