Subject Eye

Degen: Deux

I recently walked around much of lower Manhattan with my seminal good friend Kimberly Logan-Hynes. Kimberly is the Costume Shop Manager of the Florida Grand Opera. She and her lovely daughter Lucy were in Manhattan for a vacation, but both also had an agenda to complete. Both women wanted to visit yarn stores, as they love to knit. I always wanted to learn how to knit, but being a lefty and only finding right handed instructors has kept knitting something I can only admire from afar. For me, fall and winter are merely an excuse to wear sweaters.

Kimberly needed to find a specific shade of blue yarn to complete a project, and I was rather confident that this would be easy to accomplish here in New York, with so many specialty shops that cater to artisans of all types. We started our mission at Habu Textiles, which is a shop where one can find many varieties of yarn from Japan, and ended at Purl Soho, which once inside I saw yarn of every width and color (almost). There were other stops in between, but despite our nearly Arthurian ‘yarn quest,’ the desired shade of blue was a no-show. Kimberly vowed to continue her search elsewhere. Who knew what a labor of love knitting could be?

Who indeed. As a matter of fact, my friend Lindsey Degen knows well the passion for knitting. Her Degen line is mainly knitwear – though knitwear as you’ve never seen it before. Her Degen S/S 2013 collection was inspired by the individuality of ‘street style’ and her desire to move away from the trappings of technical design into a more liberating ‘do it yourself’ or ‘make it yourself’ ethos.

Lindsey assembled a group of like-minded designers and artists to help her execute this season’s endeavor. Cobbler Chris Coulthrust, in conjunction with Converse sneakers, created the fantastic footwear. The crochet hats were produced by the milliner Amy Cakes, and Claudia Baethgen designed the denim wear. The melded and multifarious jewelry design was by the artist Meredith Iszlai and Lindsey Degen.

Lindsey believes that the revolution will be craftivised and she implores us to take action, own our decisions and ‘make it’! And hopefully we will be able to do this by finding and making it in the colors that we need.