Brunswick clothing designer puts poetry in motion

Catherine Fisher versions her reversible “Latchkey” jacket at her Brunswick studio. Wearers can pick no matter if to reveal a solution patch handpainted with the design of a dwelling. John Terhune / The Forecaster
Freeport native Catherine Fisher explores a lot of themes in her poetry, but she generally returns to a central dilemma: How do we shape ourselves and the world about us?
Now, working out of her studio in Fort Andross Mill in Brunswick, Fisher has discovered a new way to bring her poetry to lifestyle: via ethically sourced, sustainable vogue.
Catherine Fisher Apparel, which introduced very last October, sells an array of Maine-crafted blouses, trousers and jackets, each and every just one primarily based on a piece of the founder’s written operate.
“The poem will come initial,” Fisher explained. “The garment just materializes, for the reason that it is like the actual physical embodiment of the poem.”

Catherine Fisher with her linen “Half-Light” blouse. Each and every product in Fisher’s selection will come in 5 or six dimensions to fit a broad vary of bodies. John Terhune / The Forecaster
For case in point, “Latchkey,” a poem comparing neglected areas of the soul to an abandoned residence, encouraged a reversible hemp-cotton jacket, featuring mattress ticking, corozo nut buttons, and a concealed pocket with a hand-painted dwelling style. Two shadowy figures on the back again of a linen blouse represent the intimate themes of Fisher’s poem, “Half-Light.”
A previous acupressurist, baker and biographer, Fisher turned to poetry in 2016 although pursuing a degree at Vermont University of Wonderful Arts.
“I turned 50, and I threw myself into it,” explained Fisher, who came to Maine in 1994. “Doing that just really helped me put myself out there in a way that I hadn’t.
In 2018, she imagined an eye-catching apparel line decorated with strains from her poems. Still she quickly made a decision that a considerably less literal translation would give each consumer additional independence to interpret the clothes.
“The most crucial piece of this entire matter is the electricity of the wearer,” said Fisher, who invested a few and a 50 % a long time making her business enterprise just before the October launch. “The wearer is the completion of the poem and the garment.”
Fisher is a proponent of “slow-vogue,” a philosophy that prioritizes shopping for a several long lasting, high-high-quality parts around several low cost goods that will dress in out quickly. She stated her outfits, sewn by Golden Thread Styles in Scarborough, is eco-friendly and ethically sourced.

Catherine Fisher hand paints quite a few of the accents on each and every garment at her studio in Fort Andross. She ships just about every sale to her consumers along with a handwritten take note and a duplicate of the poem that inspired the garment. John Terhune / The Forecaster
This dedication to sustainable methods does not occur low-cost: Items in the latest collection assortment in cost from $310 to approximately $500. Nevertheless, according to Fisher, who donates 10% of just about every sale to regional and countrywide charities connected to the garment’s concept, consumers can take pleasure in the awareness they’re not harming the natural environment or taking gain of underpaid staff.
“It would just truly feel awful to set on a garment that you know was produced by another person who was underpaid, doing it in poor situations, underage – or produced of products that would in no way biodegrade,” Fisher reported. “Because it’s these kinds of an creative impulse, I want to be guaranteed that it is unquestionably not section of the challenge, but aspect of the option.”
Falmouth artist and Fisher’s longtime close friend Bessie Moulton admits that the company’s superior-finish clothing isn’t appropriate for anyone. But for all those who, like Fisher, are normally trying to get new kinds of self-expression, poetry-impressed clothing could be worthy of just about every penny.
“The clothes just is not to deal with your total entire body,” Moulton reported. “It’s to specific on your own. It is like art to have on.”
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