Original Article
SuKaz Jackets, created by Designer Susan Hollingsworth, is the product of 20 years living in international locales. A labor of love between designer, textile artisan, and seamstress; the wearable art pieces serve as tangible reminders of cultural craft passed down through generations. Telling a unique story, threads of ancient traditions are interwoven with flashes of contemporary elegance. Each jacket is a labor of love between designer, fiber artist and seamstress; a reflection of countless hours spent haunting markets and bazaars from Africa to the Middle and Far East, points along the Silk Road of Central Asia, and the mother lode, the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul. The fiber art panel in each jacket is original, showcasing needle art techniques including embroidery, fabric origami, needle felting, ribbon work and appliqu. An individual panel can take up to 50 hours start to finish, not including the intensive training process each artisan undertakes to learn basic techniques. Buttons are often hand-crafted, tatted, kiln-forged (metal) or kiln-fired (glass), and the fabrics themselves might be embroidered, manipulated through smocking and folding, or hand woven on wooden looms. Crafted to the finest detail, SuKaz jackets are one-of-a-kindworks of art.