Studio SKB focuses on sustainable fashion with a vintage touch: The dress that takes you from work to dinner and can be worn many ways. The jacket that helps you face the weather with style, year after year. The garment with fit, feel and flexibility – with the bonus of sustainable fibers.
For nearly two decades, part of StudioSKB’s profits have gone to purchase and protect wildlife habitat through The Nature Conservancy. The company’s logo — a leaf on a hanger — symbolizes this connection.
StudioSKB began more than 20 years ago as a custom clothing business. It has since become a recognized venue for quality apparel and apparel education (www.portlandsewing.com) and has been featured in national and local publications.
Studio SKB was founded by designer and educator Sharon Blair. In 2011, Sharon decided to use StudioSKB as a launching point for talented Portland designers.
Lisa Silveira was chosen for Fall 2012-Spring 2013 by the buyers and press at the April 29 Fashion Forward Show. Lisa was one of eight designers presenting their lines at the show. They were among 29 applicants vying for spots in Portland Sewing’s Fashion Forward Program — an effort to train and launch new designers into the apparel business. Lisa’s line is called Wandering Muse. It offers Italian-inspired knitwear ready for work, play and travel.
Joshua Buck designs the menswear line for Studio SKB called Chicago Harper. Chicago Harper gives style and fit to any man who is looking to move up in his life and his career. Joshua’s line has been featured in several fashion shows and will next appear in showrooms in Los Angeles and New York.
Contact:
StudioSKB
P.O. Box 18147
Portland OR 97218
info@studioskb.com
Lisa Silveira
One of Silveira’s greatest passions is travel, from which she draws her inspiration. She has interned with a fashion designer in
Florence, Italy. It was here she developed her passion for Italian fashion, knitwear and textiles. She also studied silk painting, batik, jewelry design, oil painting, and the ways of Italian fashion and “La Bella Figura”, a way of life emphasizing beauty, good image, aesthetics and proper behavior.
She worked as contract designer for a local Portland fashion label before designing her own Italian inspired knitwear line, Wandering Muse.
Joshua Buck
Joshua Buck has spent most of his life studying art. From childhood, he has painted, sculpted, made prints and collages. He arrived to fashion late. At age 15, he saw an editorial in Vogue magazine featuring Chinoiserie.
“It sounds cliche to say, but I felt transported to an exotic land where women wore beautifully embroidered columns in bias cut silk, with theatrically made up faces. Something like totems framing the entrance of the long house you always dreamt your life was supposed to be.
“It was the first time that I felt in a fashion context the same emotive characteristics that I cherished in art. You could see the pleasure in its creation, both from the perspective of an observer, and from the perspective of an artisan. It was the pleasure of exquisite craft.”
Joshua studied painting at Pratt Institute but became more interested in sculpture and performance art. He returned to clothing as a means to create a portable context for performance art.
He graduated from Art Institute of Portland with a degree in apparel design in 2008. He has appeared in several Portland-area fashion shows including Open Season, the Portland Mercury Fashion Show, Content and Portland Fashion Week.
Chicago Harper: Tradition updated. Engineered for fit. Detailed fearlessly.
Photo credits:
Rhys Balmer, OLSchmidt
HMU:
Madeline Roosevelt
Design assistants:
Kattie Louis, Whitney Mitchell, Heidi Bergin
