Draped silk dresses

4-ply silk crepe is a beautiful fabric with a luxurious hand that can be worn year round

engraving - jean-jaques lequeu - living room at Hotel le Montholon - 1786 -

Dress - 4-ply silk with silk chiffon sleeve and lining - size 6 -$950.

Winter Sale !

I will be having my Winter Sale on Tuesday, Dec 10 - there will be new items as well as older couture stock at greatly reduced prices- if you cannot attend on the day of the sale, please get in touch to make an appointment in the following days until Dec 30. Happy Holidays to All!

Colorful Couture Fall

The Chelsea Galleries are full of color and inspiration this month. I only have to leave my studio and walk a few steps to enter whole other worlds .

Nicolas Party has transformed the Flag Art Foundation into a stage set for pastel works by various artists including Degas and Mary Cassatt. His Rococo- inspired murals cover whole rooms in the lavishly colored 2 floor space.

Pastel wall painting by Nicolas Party with painting by Edgar degas

pearl silk and wool suit w/ cloisonné buttons

green silk jersey, wool Pierre Cardin -inspired Mom’s bat mitzvah dress, black chiffon, japanese cotton ikat dresses, white silk and wool jacket over silk shantung - chantilly lace overlay skirt

Elisabeth Kley has teamed up with Tabboo! to create an enchanting environment of wall-painting and ceramic fountains at the Gordon Robichaux Gallery in Union Square reminiscent of a Roman Courtyard.

Verdant Green silk Jersey top with African cotton wax print skirt

Black English wool jacket with flower and lace adorned silk shantung skirt

Karen Kilimnik’s French-inspired small paintings and sculptures at 303 Gallery

Indian Kantha quilt made into a Frock coat

Draped cotton wax -print dress

Philip Taaffe at Luhring augustine Gallery

Japanese Cotton double-sided coat and dress ensemble made for client

Spring Sale coming soon!

Please check the Dresses page to view some of the remaining sale items which are still available and feel free to make an appointment to visit the atelier in person by visiting the contact page -

Marrekech Dress - multi cotton dutch wax African Prints

A Garden of Dresses

“ Sometimes, with exquisite delicacy, a touch of pink was added to the uniform gray of sea and sky; and at the very bottom of the Harmony in Grey and Pink after Whistler, a tiny moth asleep on the windowpane seemed to lend its wings to the favorite signature of the master from Chelsea.”

á L’Ombre des Jeunnes Filles en Fleurs - Marcel Proust

new Dutch wax print dresses in progress in my studio

visit from my niece, Lucy, wearing pontè knit butterfly sweater

Judith Linhares Flower paintings recently at PPOW Gallery in Chelsea

Happy Spring Everyone!

Judith Linhares

Stitching Spring

Winter doesn't want to leave, but Spring won't be deterred. . .the first buds are sprouting and the birds and small animals are celebrating the advent of warmer weather to come.  i always love color and it is never lacking in my studio.

threads and roses

Barbara Haskell, my wonderful client, was recently profiled on NY1  speaking about her Grant Wood painting survey currently on view at the Whitney museum

she is wearing a custom red wool pants suit and black silk camisole with lace appliqué

Barbara wore a dress of mine to the opening of her Grant wood show

it is silk Gazar with lace capelet sleeves

My husband, Artist Taro Suzuki, in front of Grant Wood's most famous painting - American Gothic

one of Grant Woods's oddly narrative paintings at the Whitney

Barbara Haskell profiled in the NYTimes

red and blue Dutch Wax  dress in progress

blue and fushia Dutch wax Qipau dress 

A client brought me some beautiful Irish Tweed that she bought in Ireland in the 60's - there was just enough to make this coat with only tiny scraps left over

client wearing finished coat

For my sister's 60 birthday her husband arranged a surprise dance party and I made her a surprise dress

red, yellow and green wax-print dress 

it fits!!

Indian block-print cotton Voile

Happy Spring Everyone!

Celestial Suiting

Since the solstice and a very busy November and December I have been ensconced in my atelier meditating and working on new designs. It is always so informative to interact with the array of women who come to my sales and see their reactions to the samples and what they end up going home with. Their needs and desires ultimately influence what I come up with in the coming months. I am happily surprised to see that many of my patterns work on different sizes and shapes of bodies.  This is an ever-evolving pursuit-  to come up with figure flattering and flexible shapes.  I have replenished my stock of Wax-print fabrics and I find it very cheering to have a bit of color around me and to think ahead to warmer weather.  

Tailored suit in a silk/wool blend, inspired by Dior

This "Raj" jacket is convertible into different configurations-  a simple fitted style or the pull back beribboned version shown here.

wax-print jacket with optional silk tartan bows

a blue version of my "poppy" dress in wax-print cotton is an   example of  a figure-loving dress

wax-print cotton - with selvage-edge finishing-    size 4  -  12     in various prints -  $475. - $575.   depending on customization   

wax-prints before washing

This was a magical December night of the super moon (which I didn't manage to capture) but it seems to be reflected in  this taffeta moirè fabric which I made into a Qipau. . .

silk moirè taffeta from Paris

I met this bright young student on New Year's Eve who wanted to try on my flower crown-  Happy New Year everyone!  Let's try and stay positive!

Sale on Tuesday December 5

New and old dresses will be on sale at my studio on Tues. Dec. 5 from 5-8 pm and until Dec. 22 by appt.

pleas contact me through the contact page in the menu

Sale extended thru Dec. 22 by appt. 

make appt by contacting me on the contact page

Winter Couture Sale

Prior Purchases from Recent Sales 

Some of the items I will have in my December Sale

I will be adding more pictures, so please check back soon. . .

click or tap to move through images

Best Dressmakers and custom Tailors in NYC

The wonderful Linda Dyett originally wrote this article for the online magazine NY City Women from which I have excerpted here.

suit and dresses by Elizabeth Cannon

Custom-Made Womenswear

New York City’s couture-dressmakers, tailors and custom-fitters are on the rebound. Here’s a guide to 10 who make the cut.

by Linda Dyett

We consumers—especially midlife and older Americans—are paring down our wardrobes and shopping less and less these days—but we’re also spending more for higher-quality wearables that express our individuality and suit us to a T. And after a decade of online point-and-click purchases, a lot of us are also eager to return to hands-on service in brick-and-mortar surroundings. 

Enter custom-made—the artisanal antidote to fast fashion. Long the province of moneyed elites, celebrities, and mothers of the bride, custom dressmaking and tailoring are today also attracting regular women, who aren’t necessarily in the market for a dress to wear to a black-tie event. These new customers are ladies with style intuition, who know the cuts, fabrics, and colors they want when they see them. And with dozens of hours of pattern-making, cutting, sewing (sometimes by hand), and intricate multiple fittings, custom-made confers an optimal fit that disguises a bulging waist, out-of-shape hips, thighs, and arms, droopy breasts, posture slump, spinal curve, and other figure flaws.  

Of course couture dressmakers and tailors come at a price. While I’ve located one who’ll work up one of her off-the-rack $100 to $400 dresses in a different size for no extra fee, most charge $240 and up for custom-made blouses and shirts; $500 and up for made-to-measure  (a widely used industry term referring to garments derived from a standard pattern); and $1,500 and up for made-to-order dresses and suits. These are hardly bargains, but they compare so favorably with higher-end, A-list designer ready-to-wear that plenty of women, once they’ve tried New York couture, won’t switch back.

Here’s a rundown of some of the city’s most celebrated as well as off-the-beaten-track dressmakers and tailors who excel in couture and made-to-measure. Just keep in mind: what they offer isn’t seasonal fashion; it’s all about personal, individual style that you can hand down to your daughter or granddaughter, who’ll cherish it as much as you do. Appointments are essential almost everywhere, and finished garments take at least a month—sometimes several—to produce. 

Elizabeth Cannon

Ensconced in a ground floor London Terrace studio, Elizabeth Cannon is that impossible-to-find accessible couturière whom stylish, independent-minded New York women dream about. Having honed her trade making costumes for the Paris Opera Ballet, her inspirations ranging from the Commedia dell’arte to Cocteau, she’s been designing made-to-order one-offs with a lyrical urban edge  since 1980. Her clients? “Very decisive” artists, musicians, gallery owners, and entertainment executives, as well as members of the Trisha Brown Dance Company. “Nothing has ever fit me so perfectly,” says one delighted customer. “It’s as if Elizabeth were channeling Schiaparelli,” says another. 

Cannon does couture by the book, using custom-padded dressmaker forms, muslins (initial mock-ups in an inexpensive fabric), and sometimes interior boned corsets. She also offers a signature collection of off-the-rack casual day- and eveningwear ($500 and up, though prices can plummet to $100 at frequent sales) that can be altered to fit. Outstanding items: A New Look-style silk shantung dress and jacket for a mother of the bride ($3,500); a silk-cotton blouse and heavy silk floral-print skirt with reinforced corseted yoke for a mother of the groom ($2,800); an African wax-print summer dress ($750); a belted, striped men’s shirting chemise, ($575, readymade; $750, made-to-order) that riffs on the frock Francoise Gilot wore in an iconic 1948 photo strolling along a French beach with an umbrella-wielding Pablo Picasso. Elizabeth Cannon Couture, 460 West 24th St., 212.929.8552.   

the full article appears here

Mother and Daughter bat mitzvah Dresses

I had a wonderful project to work on this winter - dresses for a travel-themed bat mitzvah for a mother and daughter.  They had very developed ideas about what they wanted and had thought through every detail.  I helped them execute their ideas and guide them through the process.  We were delighted with the results and had a great time working together on this important milestone. 

Sadie's Bat mitzvah dress

The "world" fabric was printed at Spoonflower who does both custom and stock printing on fabric and paper.

Sadie was born in China and we used a red embroidered line to mark her  journey from her birthplace to her new home in New York city.  Tiny crystals mark all the places mother and daughter  have visited together.

Her Mother also wanted her own dress to represent all the places they had traveled together.  She collected travel patches from as many of these cities as she could find and gave them to me to sew on her dress.

Navy Silk Faille with Travel patches and continents

We also showed the two continents representing Sadie's birthplace and her adoptive home  cut out in wool felt and connected with a red stitched line.

The day of the bat mitzvah was one of the rare sunny days in a week of cold and rainy weather

Batmitzvah Day

Around the World in Sadie Days

Otherwise happening in the studio this month 

cotton stripe blouse 

Swatching for clients-  choosing silk linings

Placement of print is always crucial- here it is gracefully figure-enhancing

African Print "Cyclone" dress 

I love texture and design- this piece is reminiscent of decorative stonework

Appliqué on silk charmeuse 

A corner of the studio with blue and orange 

Stripe silk pants, cotton shirt w/ embroidery, ponté knit camisole-  silk charmeuse top and skirt w/ barbed wire tie

sketch for artist colab dress

detail - cotton tuck dress

Book page from "Love in Venice" at the New York Public Library-  flaps lift up to show the courtesans' undergarments

Subway mosaic near the Museum of Natural History at 81 street