(exciting music)
No matter where you are in the world all of us are
looking for love, we all want peace,
and we all want to know the truth,
so that was my most recent theme.
Mona Lucero, the name just rolls off your tongue.
My name is Kylie Klein, we started talking
and we instantly hit it off
and she said she would take me on as an intern.
There's two things that are happening in any creation.
I think there's the inspiration and the art of it
and then there's the craft and the skill,
the technique that goes into a design.
I love that color on you.
Oh, thank you.
It looks great.
Yeah, it's just a--
What do you mean I'm not a bear?
I have all the Koala-fications.
She's got a soft confidence that she's always smiling
and she's always someone that's really infectious.
You really wanna smile with her, you wanna join in,
you wanna know what she's wearing and where she got it.
Odds are she made it.
Sometimes we'd just be talking,
she'd explain that a lot of her inspiration comes from
the fact that she wasn't always like,
"Oh, I wanna do fashion,.
"Oh, I'm a fashion designer."
She's an artist.
So, I have a background in sculpture and painting.
I have an art background so I'm used to looking
at a body in a 3D kinda way.
There are two different ways,
you can do flat pattern or you can drape
and I love to drape because as you go around the body,
particularly the female form,
there's so many curves and different spots that are
really beautiful and when you're draping you find
these places that are unexpected that enhance
the beauty of the female form.
Back area and hips.
It's all about the proportions and how they come together.
But I like the organic feeling of just letting it happen
and rather than worrying about like making sure
every little thing is measured.
When you start to measure things it starts to lose
the spirit of the piece.
So, she's known for like red lips,
she's got really bright, very feminine patterns
and they're very whimsical.
I'm Vyla, I'm a burlesque performer from Colorado.
I first met Mona when I was working at
this little tequila bar.
They did a casting for an event,
so I go over to her house the very first time,
I'd never modeled, I really didn't know anything about
the art scene in Denver, I was brand new here
and Mona was so kind and so warm and so welcoming
and probably would've been 20 minutes for a consultation
for a fitting and it turned into about two hours for us.
We just chit chatted, she let me try on all of her dresses.
We just, we became fast friends.
The first time I went to a retail space for Mona I was
so intrigued to actually see all of her work in one area
where I can kinda flip through
instead of seeing a certain style that she catered to,
I was able to see the variety
of what Mona is able to achieve.
I had no idea how many handbags she had made.
And so it was really nice to be able to see
where her work started, where her passions were,
just her artistry.
This is where the magic happens.
(sewing machine whirring)
I need to basically pin on the dress
and see how it's gonna fit.
Closer fitting when it's all done.
More body conscious.
More like that.
(upbeat music)
Well I started using the butterfly in my logo
quite a long time ago, '93 or something like that.
What I love about butterflies is that there are so many
different colors and patterns on them
and even the shapes of butterflies are so unique,
like they're just these super light things that just
flit around and of course then there's the metamorphosis
and there's a lot of things that a butterfly signifies.
She's definitely an art person first
and then a fashion designer second,
so all of her stuff has such an artistic take on it
that she told me to go further
and that it's not all about like what's just pretty
its what's pretty but fashionable but artistic
and this whole experience of style.
(quirky music)
I've worked with some really wonderful photographers,
but I don't always have the access I want to them,
especially since I started selling online
and I needed to take many photos
or have the availability of being able to do it like that.
Nice, stay like that for a second.
As a creative person starting off in art
I see everything as the totality of creativity.
We'll walk all the way over there
and just start walking towards me
and I'm gonna be taking pictures of you
as you come closer, okay.
Alright.
I like to portray everything that I'm interested in
and social media has helped me to do that.
It's really exciting for me, I love it.
Doesn't that look great?
Yeah.
I love that.
Oh, my God.
I get to create my own world that everybody gets to see.
Social media is important
because it's your own way of publishing.
I love the ones where they're walking
and they look like they're on their way somewhere.
I think I have a pretty good eye in terms of composition
and knowing what I want out of the models.
It's something that I think I'm pretty good at.
This particular shoot is all about Instagram.
We're trying to do something that feels like they're
just on the street and they're walking around enjoying
themselves and they're just two really hip,
beautiful girls walking around
and you know, who doesn't wanna feel like that?
Just feeling fabulous on the streets,
just seeing what we come up with.
We just get to play.
I love this.
You give such snobby faces.
It's hilarious.
Okay.
(upbeat music)
♫ Watchin' from inside
♫ Curtains are disguised
♫ It's happening right before your eyes
♫ It's falling on the ground
♫ Dust turns from green to brown
♫ Flowers are blooming all around
Kinetic quality of fabric is very interesting.
It's something that just recently I've probably
become more aware of in my own designs.
My last show, one of the themes was movement
and so what I wanted to do was have the models walking
and you can see the movement of the dresses.
And in fact we included some fringey type of elements
so as they were walking there would be this
kind of movement that was very lighthearted
and also sexy and fun.
When fabric is moving on the body as you're wearing it
it just there's something that feels really good about it,
it's like clouds passing by or something like that.
Yeah, I think this is almost--
I would assume so.
Can I get a little powder.
Any of them out there or do I leave them back?
I think, yeah, something like that would be pretty.
This dress looks like it can be an antique
with an umbrella with this.
So, they're starting off with their long straight hair
and then they're doing these tendrils,
which took them about an hour or so just on one model
and then they're gonna gonna like comb it out
so it's probably gonna be a big halo.
It's gonna be cool, I think.
(upbeat synthesized music)
Fashion shows are like weddings for designers
this is the way I've always thought.
So, if you're like the bride at your wedding
and you want everything to come off at the right time
like the doves take off at exactly at a certain time
and then when they don't come off at that time
then you're upset and nobody else notices it
and they're all like,
"Oh, my God, those doves were so amazing."
And you're like, "But I spent so much time
"trying to make sure the doves were correct."
Like it didn't work in your own mind.
And so every show to some extent does that.
But I have had shows where I was pretty happy.
That's actually happening more in recent shows
and I think that must mean that my craft
is getting better.
You're catching me do the selfie?
Let's see, what's a good thing in French?
Le chat.
I love cats.
They bring cat energy, cat attitude.
Cat heart, cat courageousness.
Cat badass attitude.
I love kitty's sense of humor.
Are you ready?
What it is to be a professional kitty cat.
That's what this is about.
Just go straight on, little bit of a...
Like raised chin?
Uh huh, just whatever you feel.
So, there's always like an extra shape.
(eccentric synthesized music)
Christopher Reidel and I started my business in 1993.
He helps me with fashion shows
and he helps set up my studios.
He's very good about figuring out all that kind of stuff.
So, he's very practical, but he's also very creative.
He pays attention to every detail
and he always has my back.
That would be amazing, wouldn't it?
It's a typical print for a maxi dress.
307.
Wow.
If that's the right one.
It's neat, I like that.
Well, there is a lot of movement in looking a the design,
but I wanted this to be able to get caught in the air,
get caught in the breeze.
(upbeat music)
In the last couple of years I've been doing
a what I call a fashion photo booth.
Instead of having models come in
and doing a fashion show we would bring in people
who are coming to visit the studio
and have them model it.
So, have fun with actually in way pretending, or
imitating models and we get a lot of great photos from it
and I post those on Instagram.
We've gotten some really great pictures, I think.
And it's really fun because you see that these are
real people and they can look very fashionable
and beautiful and interesting.
(upbeat music)
I've been so upset about everything that's been going
on politically that I've been watching stuff on politics
and hardly ever listening to music
and so toady I was like,
you need to start listening to some music again
or you're gonna lose your mind.
There have been times during my life when something
is not going right or I'm feeling pretty down
and then I'll ask myself,
what can I do to make myself feel a little bit better?
Sometimes it's music,
but generally it's the most important thing that
I always have to come back to is my art.
My art always lifts me up.
It's the one place that I can go
even if it's just as simple as drawing
or sketching a little something in a notebook.
I immediately feel so much better.
And sure enough as soon as I played the first song
I was like, "Oh, I feel so much better."
This is very nice and flowy, it's great.
Nothing says Colorado like palm trees.
You do get a general feeling of what fabric is going to do.
I remember when I first started designing,
even before I went to design school,
I would pick the wrong weight fabric or something like that.
So, those kinds of things you learn as you go
and people can kinda teach you some of it,
but you have to make a lot of mistakes to get to
the point where you really start to understand
what the fabric is gonna do
and even still I will start with a fabric that I'm familiar
with and I'll get different results than I think
I'm gonna get.
It can be sometimes frustrating especially if you
wanna do something quickly and get it done,
but other times the surprise can take you to another
place that you hadn't expected
and it can turn out to be so much better
when you make those mistakes.
So, it's many years of learning sometimes the most
mundane things and eventually it becomes something esoteric.
A little bit extra color and it's funny
because it takes time to get it to that point.
Doesn't it?
And then she put like red lipstick, that was it.
And I would just be like,
"Oh, my God, my mother's so beautiful."
She's someone you keep as a friend kind of forever.
She's one of those really amazing genuine people.
I like to talk about her to my friends.
She's definitely sparked inspiration in me.
Think I get that same confidence from Mona in
the sense that she's not afraid to experiment with style.
To see just the variety and the amount of time
and the technique and the details that Mona's put
into her work without having art grants
or any kind of institutional support is pretty phenomenal.
It's cut on the bias,
which means it's cut on a 45 degree angle.
So, when somebody wears this it will go around their curves.
She's definitely someone who starts with next to nothing.
She like the blank canvas that you get as an artist.
I feel like Mona's truly an alchemist.
She can make something from nothing.
I mean, I've watched her for years and how it's changed
and if you've seen it for a while you can see
how it evolves, but today when you look at what
she's doing it looks evolved.
I mean, it's like there.
When you back and look you can see kind of where she
was and how it got here and I love that.
Thank you.
There's three famous dress, they're red,
white, and yellow.
The main one that everyone was talking about
is the 69 dress.
I helped sew those and it's funny because
when we were putting those on they were gonna be
for a fashion show that spring that I was working with her
and they weren't quite done.
They weren't quite fitted to the models,
so we actually had to sew some of the models
into the dresses before they were even finished
to have them walk out.
I also took a lot of photos with them in her then apartment.
And 69 was really popular, a lot of people asked about it.
So, we recaptured it.
It's interesting to think about broken wings.
I think everybody has something in them that is probably
broken and they're always trying to mend,
it is something that artists do,
that's inherent, that we're trying to mend the things
that have happened in our lives or in the world.
And it's something that you're not always aware of as
an artist, but you're just doing that anyway.
It's always making something more beautiful.
If you know if it's truly your calling
you'll continue with it, you won't give up,
even during those times when you're frustrated,
maybe the world doesn't wanna hear your story
or see what you're doing or you're not making any money,
you're struggling, maybe you can't eat for a day or two,
whatever it might be can't make your rent,
maybe your family
or friends aren't respectful of what you're doing
or they don't understand why you're doing it,
all of those things,
but if you're in the right spot you'll continue to do it
and that's something that I'll always remember,
it's super important to remember where your heart is.
And if creating something makes you happy
then stick with it.
(quirky synthesized music)
You know the old fashioned British documentaries
and they'd have the voice over
and they'd be like, "And designer Mona Lucero
"and antique dealer Eron Johnson are commiserating
"over their latest creative endeavors."
Yeah, and the people are talking away for five minutes
and the description of us.
"They had a very good conversation."
Exactly.
Oh, no, no, no.
No more, no camera, no camera.
For more infomation >> Palace fashion show - Duration: 1:16. 
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